Customer First programme - Annual Report 2021 to 2022

To help develop and improve services from a customer’s perspective, we've introduced on-the-spot feedback methods which include:

• interactive screens customers can ‘tap’ at our offices to leave instant feedback
• digital feedback, allowing residents to select happy or sad faces

We've also introduced a digital tool that is able to use analytics to notice trends and reasons why customers are contacting the Council. It identifies potential issues so we can respond quickly to any situation.

We’ve introduced a new telephone service in customer facing services.

This brings multiple benefits such as:

• call recording to aid training and improvements
• lots of data to help manage calls
• automated selection so customers can pick the service they want to speak to quickly
• ability to move staff to the busier service areas to take calls and reduce waiting times

We've introduced a new series of training for all staff to ensure that standards of customer experience are prioritised throughout all service areas.

Customers often get frustrated if they are not kept updated on a service that takes some time to arrange.

We’ve put in place solutions to ensuring:

• customers are kept up to date on their request by sending a text message or email update
• customers do not need to get back in contact with us for an update as we are keeping them updated already

Customer First experts work services that have a lot of customer contact to make sure that their processes are:

• customer friendly
• easy to understand
• fast and efficient
• always looking at ways to improve

As an example, the process changes made to ‘Fix My Street’ have really improved the customer experience for all users, making it easier to use, clear expectations set out for what customers can expect and regular updates sent to customers.