Authentic BCS Certification Exam BAPv5 Questions Answers

The documentation explains that CSFs are the areas where things “must go right,” and KPIs are the measures that show whether progress is being made toward achieving a CSF. KPIs should focus on specific performance areas and should be defined so they are SMART and monitored regularly.

For a CSF of “excellent customer service,” appropriate KPIs should reflect customer experience outcomes and customer loyalty/retention. Option C (“number of customers who post negative feedback”) is directly linked to service quality: negative feedback is a clear indicator that customers perceive service failures. Tracking it (and ideally setting a target such as “no more than X per month”) provides a measurable signal of whether service is improving.

Option D (“percentage of customers who renew their annual subscription”) is also strongly linked to customer service because renewal rates are a widely used indicator of customer satisfaction and loyalty: customers who experience consistently good service are more likely to continue their membership. As a KPI, it is measurable, trendable over time, and can be given SMART targets.

The other options are not direct indicators of customer service quality: restaurant ordering (A) is sales/upsell behaviour, fitness improvement (B) is an outcome of training/programming rather than service, and payment method (E) is an administrative preference. Therefore, the best KPIs for this CSF are C and D.

The key issue described—staff creating manual workarounds to satisfy important customers—often reflects tacit knowledge and “what really happens” in day-to-day work, not what is written in policies or what people might summarise in a survey. The guidance is clear that while interviews and workshops can reveal stakeholder views, the “back-story” of real working practices can differ; techniques such as work shadowing and observation help clarify what actually happens.

Shadowing is specifically defined as following a user as they carry out their job for a period (e.g., a day or two) in order to find out what the job entails. This is exactly the kind of technique that exposes hidden steps, exceptions, customer-specific handling, and unofficial procedures—precisely the conditions that drive workarounds when a COTS package does not fit real operational needs.

The observation section also highlights that seeing the workplace provides a much better understanding of problems and difficulties faced by business users and helps uncover tacit information that would otherwise remain unstated. Additionally, the guidance even uses customer services as an example area where an analyst might shadow staff to record real call types, durations, and retrieval delays—evidence that supports discovering process pain and mismatch early.

Therefore, shadowing customer service personnel (D) would have been most likely to uncover the workaround drivers earlier.

 A Business Activity Model (BAM) is a technique for modelling business activities within an organisation or project at a high level of abstraction. It helps to understand what an organisation does, how it does it, who does it, where it does it and why it does it. Therefore, option D is the correct answer, as a BAM would help the business analyst to identify underlying causes of a problem with declining sales. A BAM would help to analyse how different activities within an organisation contribute or relate to sales performance and identify any gaps or issues that may affect sales performance. A BAM would help to compare current and desired situations or problems and identify what changes or improvements are needed to achieve desired situations or problems. Option A is not a correct answer, as customer journey maps are not a technique for identifying underlying causes of a problem with declining sales. Customer journey maps are a technique for visualising customer experiences with an organisation or product across different touchpoints and stages. They help to understand customer needs, expectations and emotions and how they are met or influenced by an organisation or product. Option B is not a correct answer, as scenario analysis is not a technique for identifying underlying causes of a problem with declining sales. Scenario analysis is a technique for exploring how different scenarios or situations could affect outcomes or impacts of an organisation or project. They help to test feasibility and desirability of different options or solutions under various circumstances or assumptions. Option C is not a correct answer, as use case diagram is not a technique for identifying underlying causes of a problem with declining sales. Use case diagram is a technique for modelling functional requirements of a system or product at a high level of abstraction. They help to understand what functions or features are required or provided by a system or product and how they interact with actors or users.