Customer First Accredited

Customer First is the minimum quality assurance standard for organisations that provide business support services to companies funded from public sources (eg funded through the Regional Development agency's Single Pot, Objective ½ funding, SRB funding/Business Link funding).

Customer First has been developed as a means of assessing the quality of business support provision and building capacity of the provider base. Compliance with the Customer First Standard is the minimum quality requirement for any provider offering a publicly funded business support service.

The standard is recognised by the key funding agencies that want to raise the quality of business support provision offered in the region.

The funding bodies expect that providers currently accessing funding/or considering bidding for funding are committed to and working towards compliance with the standard.

Funding bodies will have set a target date by when they will expect all providers to be fully compliant with the standard.