The Sociale Verzekeringsbank SVB (Social Insurance Bank) declared 2005 Year Of the Customer. The organisation which administrates the AOW (Algemene Ouderdomswet, General Old Age Pension Act), the ANW (Algemene nabestaandenwet, General Surviving Dependants Act) and Child Benefits, has set up an internal improvement scheme with a view to becoming the best public service provider in the Netherlands.

Apart from continuous customer satisfaction surveys, SVB conducts several internal projects with which they intend to achieve this ambition. That is why they have asked Simenco about the possibilities of a simulation, which will allow them to boost the internal focus on the fact that they are a service provider. An important precondition was that all SVB employees, from the Board of Directors to the front office, could participate in the same programme.

After 5 months of preliminary research, design, development and a few pilots, the first sessions started in March 2005 with the online simulation called ‘Familiezaken’ (Family Matters). In this 2 hour long workshop all SVB employees were presented with 5 cases in the simulation. The decisions taken by the participants in order to 'solve' the cases, resulted in scores for 5 service indicators: internal and external customer satisfaction, efficiency, lawfulness and employee satisfaction. The main objective of the simulation was to give the SVB employees the experience of what service quality means and which contribution they can make themselves actively, individually and collectively. A raised awareness of their customers therefore, from the top management down to the front office.

In addition to the development of the tailor made simulation ‘Familiezaken’ (Family Matters), SVB asked us to run all 250 workshops together with the internal trainers. A total of 16 training staff ran all workshops in a 4 month period.

An article on this project was published in the September issue (2005) of the magazine Interne Communicatie (Dutch)

Are you interested in a demo of the simulation? Feel free to contact us. We can then discuss the options for your organisation.

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