CHESSS was an 18 month European Commission and EFTA funded project undertaken to determine the feasibility of generic service standardization in Europe.
Each of the individual CHESSS modules has produced its own report with its own conclusions, recommendations and next steps. The CHESSS report was submitted to the European Commission and EFTA in 2009.
The individual reports are available as follows:
Background
Based on the concern that the free movement of services across member states' borders is not as active as with products, and taking into consideration the success that product standards have had in increasing the movement of products, the European Commission wanted to verify whether service standards could do the same. Furthermore, it was felt that there may be a possibility for standards to improve the quality and excellence in European service delivery, increase customer confidence in services, and assist in the implementation of the Services Directive. Therefore the European Commission decided to invest in a number of standardization studies, one of which is the feasibility of generic service standards.
Therefore the CHESSS initiative was set up to determine the feasibility of an integrated program of generic service standardization within CEN. As such, the feasibility study was required to:
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Identify, secure support from and engage all key stakeholder groups (e.g. government, service providers, service users;
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Facilitate a coordinated, common approach to the provision of standards in support of the effective delivery of services;
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Provide an implementation plan for the development of new service standards, both as a direct result of the programme and as may be required in future.
To achieve these three objectives the CHESSS Initiative was created, through the partnership of the following National Standards Bodies (NSBs): AENOR (Spain), BSI (United Kingdom), DIN (Germany), DS (Denmark), EVS (Estonia) and NEN (the Netherlands). CEN was also a key partner within the project. Additionally, Cap Gemini was brought in to provide their independent, expert opinion and moderation techniques in support of the CHESSS Project Team.
The underlying concept of the project, derived from a generic approach to services, was that there are fundamental principles of good service, delivery and assessment that are applicable to any service offering, no matter what the sector or its primary focus. To determine whether this concept was accurate the Project Team launched a program of desk research, surveys, interviews, workshops and seminar. Furthermore, the Project Team sought to engage with all relevant CEN Committees, project leaders for other initiatives under Mandate M/371, and structured their processes to ensure they were open and inclusive.
In order to ensure a fast, effective and inclusive process for the CHESSS Initiative, the Project Team launched a research program that was structured around seven individual modules, each with a generic service standardization focus:
Module 1 - Guidance in the preparation of service standards
Module 2 - Glossary of terms and definitions relevant to service standardization
Module 3 - Safety in the delivery of services
Module 4 - Good practice in the assessment of customer satisfaction
Module 5 - Recommendations for complaints and redress systems
Module 6 - Billing and innovative metering practice
Module 7 - The specification, sourcing, delivery and quality of business-to-business (B2B) services
To encourage further interaction with stakeholders, the CHESSS Initiative was accompanied by a series of regional World Cafes and a Seminar in Brussels.