Aiming High - customer focus

We will transform the Council so that it consistently achieves high levels of customer satisfaction and engagement and consistently focuses on the needs of citizens and service users. Modern customers expect excellent customer care. We need to raise our game to provide the responsive, customer focused services that people in the Borough expect. We want to provide a more customer centred approach developing more personalised services.

Some of the issues we need to address include:

  • According to a national MORI survey in 2006, we have a relatively low satisfaction rating amongst our residents, with the rate varying from service to service
  • There are a confusing number of council reception areas which just cater for one or two services
  • Access to some council buildings is difficult but we are working towards improving the quality of the customer experience
  • Customers sometimes receive poor customer care and engagement
  • Residents do not identify with the council or have a clear understanding of how to bring their problems to us – we have no consistent brand or image

Priorities

  • We will develop a focus on the changing needs of customers and service users
  • We will increase customer satisfaction
  • We will build a strong reputation for the Council and improve our communications with customers
  • We will improve customer engagement

What we will do

We will:

  • Set out clearly our commitment to the customer and how we will deliver customer focused services
  • Develop and improve communications and set out clearly how we will communicate with our internal and external customers
  • Continue to develop our Corporate Contact Centre by providing a comprehensive response to the 10,000-plus daily telephone calls, and extend opening hours to evenings and weekends
  • Review our shared access points for customers, like SureStart, Extended Schools and Joint Service Centres, to ensure a co-ordinated approach to service delivery and enable more information about the quality of customer experience to be gathered
  • Carry out a survey of staff to find out their attitudes to customer care
  • Improve training and induction so that the importance of our customers is clear
  • Change the culture of the Council to make it more responsive to customers
  • Develop our Customer Relations Database to ensure staff have speedy access to customer information
  • Improve the quality of public access points, and provide access to all services at each point
  • Develop a corporate approach to complaints and comments and learn how we can improve
  • Develop a coordinated consultation plan and carry out regular and independent customer surveys at service and Council level
  • Refresh the citizen’s panel and hold an annual listening event for customers
  • Develop and apply communications standards for the Council developing communications initiatives. These will ensure all communication is effective and accessible
  • Develop branding and style guidelines to ensure the consistent branding of council services
  • Continue to develop our corporate website which already meets worldwide accessibility standards
  • Develop an A-Z of services and ensure that residents have access online or in a printed format
  • Improve our civic newspaper
  • Fulfil all of the core actions recommended in the Local Government Association’s reputation campaign and seek quality accreditation through such standards as the Charter Mark