The Institute of Customer Service appoints new director

The Institute of Customer Service, the professional body for customer service, has appointed Graham Heald as its new customer experience director.

In the newly created role, Heald will be spearheading the development of the Institute’s membership services, enhancing the Institute’s ability to provide tailored services that relate to organisations’ specific business objectives and provide a clear demonstration of return on investment.

In addition, he will also be responsible for overseeing the development of the Institute’s research and insight strategies and the creation of new membership offerings, as the Institute responds to Government data suggesting many UK employees are failing to exhibit ‘appropriate customer handling skills’.

Heald joins from the board of Homebase where he led the organisation’s retail and distribution directorate. Prior to this, he spent 24 years at Waitrose, where he served as director of retail services.

Jo Causon, CEO of the Institute of Customer Service, said: “With 78 percent of the UK’s GDP coming from services and over 70 percent of the workforce employed in customer related roles there is a real opportunity for the UK to lead on customer service excellence.

“Graham’s experience and his proven track of growing organisations in a competitive environment mean that he is the ideal addition to a team that will ensure we can assist UK organisations meet the challenges ahead.”

The Institute of Customer Service has a community of more than 500 organisational members from the private, public and third sectors and over 3,000 individual memberships.