Customer Service Standards

ROTHER DISTRICT COUNCIL

Draft 42

CUSTOMER SERVICE STANDARDS

2007 – 2009

Page 1 of 12

Customer Service Standards

Contents / Section No. / Page No.
Introduction -
Purpose of the standards / 1 / 3
Current Level of Provision / 2 / 54
Service Standards / 3 / 78
Future Developments / 4 / 889
Monitoring and Review / 5 / 10
Action Plan / 6 / 1411
  1. Introduction:

1.1Rother District Council’s Corporate Plan states that we will be a reliable, well run, customer focussed organisation, working hard to achieve the improvements set out in the vision for the District. The Council’s Aims are:

  1. Putting Customers First
  2. Delivering Value for Money
  3. Building Stronger, Safer Communities
  4. Working in Partnership

1.2Our ambitions are to be widely recognised as a:

  • Service Provider delivering a clearly defined range of quality services that customers value highly.
  • Community Leader working in partnership with others to secure stronger, safer community life for all our residents.

1.3We believe that we offer a good service to our customers, but acknowledge that some aspects of our service can be improved. Using feedback and information from our customers, and better systems we can continue to improve that service level throughout the authority. Making Customers Firstour key focus will help to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction, and will drive the organisation forward.

1.4As a Service Provider, Rother District Council is here to offer a range of services to customers, in the most efficient and cost effective way. Sometimes we do this directly, sometimes indirectly through our contractors. Our customers must know what they can expect from us to enable them to judge how well we do.

1.5This document:

  • details the commitment of the whole organisation to our customers;

sets out the standards our customers can expect;

  • details our plans to improve customer access to services throughout Rother District; and
  • shows how we will monitor and review progress.

1.6This document should be read in conjunction with the

  • Rother District Council Corporate Plan 2006-2016;
  • Rother District Council Equalities Scheme;
  • Information, Communications and Technology Strategy; and
  • Access East Sussex Access Strategy.

1.7We want to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction, and demonstrate staff enthusiasm and commitment to our customers. Rother will be recognised amongst its peers as a forward thinking, innovative place to work and we will be seen as an efficient and customer based organisation by our customers. Staff have a strong customer ethos and we will nurture and encourage this.

1.8These Standards are available at our Community Help Points, and will be published on our website at They will be subject to review and improvement as required.

1.9This document details our customer care standards in relation to the residents of and visitors to the Rother district.

2.Current Level of provision:

2.1There are 8 main ways for customers to access services:

  • a customer with an appointment to meet an officer will normally go to their office;
  • public meetings continue to be held in the Town Hall as well as local community facilities, and the Town Hall Reception Team also responds to general enquiries;
  • all other visitors to Rother District Council now attend our Community Help Points;
  • customers access us byon telephone either through our Community Help Point numberss, through the switchboard or by direct dial to an officer;
  • many customers prefer to contact the Council by letter;
  • customers obtain information through our website where they can also view planning applicationsand ‘reportapplications,’ report a fault’ or pay their bills. In addition they can e-mail with a general query or e maile-mail directly to an officer;
  • customers may receive a home or site visit depending on the nature of their enquiry; and
  • customers can also contact their local Councillors.

2.2We provide three Community Help Points for customer contact at Battle, Bexhill-on-Sea and Rye. This team answers or assists with enquiries regarding either the Council or partnership organisations. Most of our customers at the Community Help Points request a service by coming to those offices, but we also receive letters, telephone and electronic enquiries at those locations.

2.3In addition to the services Rother District Council provides, customers can also gain information and assistance fon behalf of our partner organisations through the Community Help Points. These currently include East Sussex County Council, Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust, the Department of Work and Pensions and the Citizens Advice Bureaux.

2.4Cu
Customers can gain access to the Council through the Public Iinformation Point kiosks located across the district. These kiosks provide access to the Council through the our website where customers can ‘contact us’, view planning applications, report faults such as street lighting, pay bills such as Council tax and view tourist information. These kiosks are located in Fairlight, Little Common, Ticehurst, Northiam, Winchelsea, Etchingham, Sidley, Robertsbridge, Battle and Bexhill.

Best Value Report and CPA Reports

2.56Our current services have been reviewed both within the Council and by the Audit Commission.

The Best Value Review of Accessing Services (completed in March 2003) was a wide-ranging analysis of customer service. It was noted that some of the facilities which Rother offered were not as customer friendly as we would wish, and the introduction of our accessible Community Help Points at Bexhill and Rye has started to address that issue. Customers can now get their queries answered at these specialist help points and their introduction has been well received.

2.6These improvements were recognised by the Audit Commissions report in May 2004. That inspection found that our staff throughout the authority are customer focussed and capable apable but that we need to introduce a set of standards enabling customers to know what to expect from the service and how the Council is performing.

3.Our Corporate Service Standards:

All our Customers have an equal right to access council services, and we will make every effort to meet their needs regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or background. Whether our customers contact us in person, by letter, by telephone or electronically these service standards apply. The service standards set out below have been developed following consultation with our customers.

  1. Answer 80% of all enquiries at first contact.
  1. Treat our customers with respect and dignity.
  1. Return telephone messages/voicemail within one working day.
  1. Respond to all electronic enquiries within one working day, providing detailed answers within 5 working days if we are unable answer in full within one day.
  1. Respond to letters and faxes within 10 working days, if we are not able to provide detailed response in that time, advise when we will.
  1. Answer 90% of telephone calls within 15 seconds, during our normal working hours and maintain an effective ‘out of hours’ telephone response through the ‘Lifeline’ service.
  1. Attend to customers in our Community Help Points within 15 minutes of arrival.
  1. Produce our forms and information leaflets in plain English.
  1. Produce information in alternative formats and languages on request.
  1. Ensure all public buildings are accessible to disabled people.
  1. Manage a robust complaints handling procedure to ensure that at least 85% of customers are satisfied with the way we deal with complaints, putting things right quickly and effectively if they go wrong.

Rother District Council is committed to continual improvement in our performance against these standards. We will monitor our performance by the use of:

  • data collection, reported through cComputer systems;
  • mystery shoppers; and
  • customer feedback and complaints.

The results of this monitoring will be reported regularly to the Strategic Management TeamManagement Team, to elected members and publicly through committee reports and on the Rother District Council website.

4.FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS:

In order to achieving achieve our Customer Care Standards we have set out below our objectives for achieving improvement. Customer research demonstrated that the majority of customers found it easy to contact the Council (74%); however we will continue to build on and improve their satisfaction. The research also showed that the majority of customers prefer to contact the Council either by telephone (29%) or in person (26%). We will therefore continue to offer this range of ways that customers can contact the Council but will also develop alternative ways to engage our young people and the growing numbers of those customers who prefer electronic contact methods. We will improve our customer access service in the following ways:

Our Objectives

Customer contact. We will:

4.1 Train our staff to ensure that customer service is of the same standard for all customers regardless of their location and to ensure that our standards are recognised and met.

4.2 Continue to develop the comments and complaints procedure and introduce robust systems to ensure that management information is available and used to improve service delivery and customer satisfaction.

4.3 Ensure that the Community Help Points to deal with most enquiries at first point of contact, providing efficiencies and value for money for our customers.

4.4 Assess the demand for outreach surgeries in areas that are remote from Community Help Points. If such a demand exists recommend the most efficient way for the Council to respond to those demands.

4.5 Establish a Customer Forum to undertake regular consultation, comprising a representative cross-section of our customer base and ensuring that community, minority or disadvantaged groups have appropriate representation.

4.6Explore the best way to develop our telephone service.

4.7Explore the best use of text messaging.

4.8Promote the use of the Council website, including the payments and ‘report a fault’ facilities and launch and develop a Customer Services section. Conform to accessibility guidance, ensuring access for disabled people and those with alternative language needs.

4.9Influence the content and support the coverage of the Public Information Point kiosks across the district.

4.10Implement the web development strategy ensuring that customers who wish to ‘self help’ can do so. This will free resources to meet the needs of those customers requiring more individual attention.

General

4.104.11Explore and utilise opportunities to publicise the services we deliver and actively encourage customer feedback to improve our services.

4.121Explore the use of Digital TV and present a report with recommendations for consideration by the executive and members.

4.132Review the opening hours of the Community Help Points for both face to face customers and those contacting us by remote methods. Ensure that people can contact us in the most efficient and effective ways.

4.143Encourage customer feedback at every opportunity on the range and standard of service delivered.

4.154Continue to work closely with partner organisations to ensure our customers get the best service possible, regardless of the agency that ‘owns’ that service.

4.165Involve all staff in the improvement of our Customer Services delivery.

4.176Use customer response to aid us in the review of accessibility to our services on a regular basis.

4.187Develop our systems to ensure that we have a single view of the customers to enable their queries to be dealt with swiftly and effectively. This includes implementation of systems integration and the exploration of a customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

5.MONITORING AND REVIEW

In order to continually improve we will monitor our performance against the standards we have set and ensure that we either meet or exceed these standards.

We already have information on our performance against some of our service standards as can be seen below;

Answer 80% of enquiries at first point of contact.

Standard / Current Performance (2006)
I) Answer 80% of enquiries at first point of contact. / 805% of queries answered at first point of contact.
VI) Answer 90% of telephone calls within 15 seconds during our normal working hours. / 65% of all calls were answered. 73% of those calls were answered within 15 seconds.
VII)Attend to customers in our Community Help Points within 15 minutes of arrival. / Average waiting time for a general query is 9 minutes. Specialist queries such as Housing average 17 minutes.

We will now monitor performance against all of our standards, and monitor progress against the action plan and the timescales we have set. This section sets out the ways in which we will do this:

5.1 The standards we have set will be monitored through our performance management system (RtPMS) on a quarterly basis. Information collection will be the responsibility of the Customer Services Mmanager.

5.2We have introduced a feedback and complaints procedure. We take feedback and complaint very seriously and will congratulate our staff when they have done something especially well, or investigate and put something right very quickly when it has gone wrong. We have a written complaints and compliments policy which is available on our website or through our Community Help Points. When we receive complaints we monitor the speed of response and the level of satisfaction with the way in which the complaint was handled. In future we will monitor compliments and complaints so that we better understand our customers’ needs and continually improve our service.

5.3 We have established project teams to take responsibility for setting our future strategy for improving customer care and communications across the Council. These groups are sponsored by the Chief Executive and will report on their recommendations in the Autumn of 2007.

5.42Exceptions to achievement of the standards will be reported by the Customer Services Manager to the Improvement and Resources Ssub-Committee. In addition the Strategic Management Team will receive a quarterly report on performance against the standards and progress against the milestones set out in the action plan.

5.5The customer care standards will be formally reviewed following wide spread consultation in 2009 by the Director of Resources.

5.6Continual training of staff in both customer care and ‘expert’ knowledge is essential if the Council is to achieve its objectives. The amount, quality and outcomes of this training will be monitored through the Staff Appraisal scheme and by yearly reporting to the Strategic Management Team by the Head of Human Resources.

ACTION PLAN

This section sets out our action plan for achieving our objectives in set out in section 4.

Objectives / Activity / Timescale / Responsible Officer / Priority
4.1 / Produce a staff training plan to ensure equality of service throughout the district, including partnership functions at CHP’s.
Training to be given to support 80% of all customer enquiries being resolved at point of first contact. / July 2007 ? / Head of Human Resources / High
4.3
4.16 / Expand and promote the use of the Community Help Points to reduce routine enquiries received by professional officers. This will include consideration of additional functions that could be provided by the CHP’s. / April 2008 / Heads of Service.
Customer Services Manager / High
4.11 / Attend four external events per year to publicise our services. / March 2008 and yearly thereafter / Customer Services Manager. / Low
4.4 / Meet the requirements of Executive Priority (EP08) to introduce outreach surgeries, as appropriate. / September 2007
October 2011 in the scope / Customer Services Manager.
Customer Services Team. / Low
4.8
4.10 / Improve the customer services section of the website following the current review. This will include increasing the accessibility for Disabled people and those whose first language is not English (EP07). / August pril 2007 ? / Customer Services Manager. Webmaster. / High
4.8
4.9
4.10 / Continue to develop the Public Access KiosksInformation Points throughout the district. / April April 20087 ? / Head of Technology. / Medium
Objectives / Activity / Timescale / Responsible Officer / Priority
4.2
4.14 / Develop the feedback and complaints system; analyse reports made. Measure service failure as reported by customers and set targets to reduce the number of reported failures. / Mayarch 2007 ? and annually quarterly thereafter / Customer Services Manager. / High
4.5
4.17
4.14 / Establish a Customer Forum to undertake consultation with customers regarding their needs. / June 2007 / Customer Services Manager. / Medium
4.3
4.16
4.13
4.15 / Establishment of Customer Services Working Group. / October March 2007 / Democratic Services Manager. / Medium
4.11 / Raise staff and member awareness of service standards through an initial launch and ongoing communications. / May 2007 / SMT.
Democratic Services Team. / High
4.12
4.13 / Review accessibility of our service to our customers including opening hours and access channels, following customer feedback. / December June 2007? / Director of Resources.
Customer Services Manager. / Medium
4.1 / Provide hearing loops and translation servicesand translation services in all public access buildings and for all public access meetings. / April 2007 / Customer Services Manager / High
4.1 / Complete equality impact assessments for front line services.
(Executive Priority 07) / October 2007 / Heads of Service. / High
4.18 / Completion of iEvaluation of [R1]Integration software project and consideration of CRM systems. / June 20087? / Business Development Manager. / High
4.6
4.7 / Review of Call Centre systems and technology. / March 2007 / Head of Technology. / Medium
4.13
4.17
4.14 / Revision of Customer Services Strategy. for period 2009 – 2015 / January 2009Autumn 2008 / Director of Resources. / High

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[R1]As we are in phase 2 of the integration software is this still appropriate?