Current Development of International Service Certification

Date：2017/12/13　　Clicks：3250

Currently, with the global entering service economy era, the service industry has become the largest sector of China's national economy with its added value accounting for more than 50 percent of GDP. It has become a new driving force for China's national economy to optimize and upgrade its industrial structure in the new era and the new normal, and gain a new round of growth. 

　　Especially with the support of information technology, new fields, business forms and service modes develop rapidly, and new service industries such as cross-border e-commerce and Internet shopping grow increasingly along with the deepening of the “the Belt and Road Initiative”, which put forward new requirements for service quality assurance, service standard development and service performance evaluation. 

　　From the development trend at home and abroad, service certification is in the initial stage, and there is huge room for future development. Starting late, lacking of enough technical standards and widely being short of government guidance as well as market acceptance mechanisms, service certification industry needs the joint promotion from the community including the industry authorities, associations, related companies, consumers and other sectors to enlarge its social influence. Service standardization has gradually developed since the 1990s. Therefore, the history of international service certification is not long. Across the world, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria in Europe are countries with relatively early service certification. 

　　　French service certification 

　　France is the first country to conduct service certification. NF certification is a French voluntary product certification, developed by the Technical Standards Board or the Technical Committee established by the French Standards Association (AFNOR). The NF Service Certification Mark is a voluntary certification mark issued by AFNOR, which is a French standard code that certifies the service product complies with the French approval standard. At present, NF service certification has been carried out in many industries such as tourism, transportation, consulting, education and training, business services, construction services, real estate, etc., involving a total of 140 projects, including: customer relationship center services, business development services, hotel services, travel agency services, rental services, etc. The French NF Service Certification Mark was registered in France and is protected by law. The NF Service Mark can be used alone or in conjunction with other marks. 

　　NF service certification has a wide range of certifications, and any consumption and professional services in the public or private sector can apply for service certification. The entire certification process of NF certification has strict requirements, and services must meet the specifications (or certification standards) in order to pass the NF service certification. At the same time, the French standard is compatible with the EU CE standard and the French standard even exceeds the EU standard in many respects, so any service that obtains the NF label can directly obtain the CE label. At present, the existing certification marks for NF service certification include 13 subsistence services and 9 productive services. 

　　UK service certification 

　　The service certification in the UK mainly involves 7 service certification projects such as auto repair service shop, electronic product installation, fire alarm installation, moving service, warehousing service, window energy saving rating and window installation service and a total of 1391 certificates were issued. Among them, the auto repair service shop certification "PAS125:2007 Auto Repair Shop" can be applied to any auto repair organization, regardless of its size, or independent storefront, or authorized operation, and the number of certifications has reached 834; fire alarm installation is divided into 4 modules, including:system design, installation, commissioning and handover, maintenance, etc., and issued a total of 134 certificates; moving service certification as long as it involves the contract of the moving company and pre-purchase information, moving service specifications, contracts and legal documents, moving service provision, staff capacity and training, after-sales service, service quality control, etc.; warehousing service certification takes "PAS 80:2005 automatic warehousing service - vehicle service and maintenance - technology and customer service - specification as its standard that measures customer service, customer satisfaction, customer convenience facility availability, employee capabilities, technical operating practices, etc.; window installation services, based on "BS 8213-4:2007 window and exterior door survey and installation practices "service certification, has now issued certifications for 44 companies. 

　　In general, there are not many service certification projects in the UK, but the development of each service project is more in-depth. For example, more than 800 companies in the auto repair service store project have been certified, and more than 100 certified companies in electronic product installation, fire alarm installation, and window energy rating. 

　　German and Austrian service certification 

　　In recent years, Germany has gradually entered the service certification field. The current service certification involves informal education and training, short-term language training, diving services, security services, logistics and other fields. Austria's service certification is mainly concentrated in the field of diving services, call center services and translation services. In the future, it will be expanded in the fields of trainer training services, short-term language learning training services, and art transport services. 

　　Russian service certification 

　　In June 1993, Russia promulgated and implemented the N 5151-1 Certification of Products and Services Act, establishing the legal basis for the certification of products, services and other objects. Service projects also require mandatory certification and self-declaration. On July 1, 2003, the Russian Federation's N184-03 "Technical Regulation Act" came into effect officially and the 10-year "Product and Service Certification Act" was immediately abolished. This new technical regulation fundamentally establishes the basic principle of transforming Russian standardization from a mandatory system to a voluntary system, eliminating the mandatory certification required for previous safety-related services, removing "service" item in mandatory conformity assessment (Self-statement and certification). Since the entry into force of the Technical Coordination Law, in order to organize the service certification in the TOCTP (Russian Standardization Association) certification system, the Russian National Standardization and Metrology Commission passed the No. 66 “Standard Text of the TOCTP Certification System in the Implementation of Voluntary Service Certification”approvals resolution in 2003. 

　　Spanish service certification 

　　The Spanish service industry accounts for a large proportion of GDP, accounting for about 70% of GDP. The service industry employs approximately 65% of the workforce in Spain. The Spanish service certification has been carried out for 15 years and has wide experience in it. In terms of service certification, it has developed many different standards for different industries and fields, and focuses on providing services to customers, citizens and users. Spanish service certification is based on the fact that most customers already have a certificate of quality management system and want to improve their services. At present, Spain regards service certification as product certification, and also follows the requirements of ISO 17065. 

　　The Spanish Service Certification Standards assist different industries in different ways and achieve different results, so the standards are quite diverse. Service certification can refer to the norms or codes of the local governments or industry organizations, but is not limited to the reference standards. In special cases, even the group's own regulations can be used for certification, and audit activities are conducted according to industry-specific rules/specifications. And the industry logo is combined with the "Certified by AENOR" production service certification mark. 

　　There are two ways of service certification in Spain: the first is the tangible elements (facilities and services, equipment, documents) associated with the service provider; the second is the characteristics of the service deliverables (the minimum quality of the service, commitment to the quality requirement of the user, specific operational procedures, minimum requirements for personnel and skills training).

　　In summary, International service certification is still in its infancy, and countries basically carry out certification work based on specific service national standards. A few countries, such as Russia, have enacted and implemented technical regulations for service certification.