Customer Experience

The improvements underway will improve customers’ experience when dealing with the council, this will be achieved as follows:

Standards and Expectations

Customer Service Standards will be introduced across the council. Customers increasingly expect the same standards of service from the public sector as they are used to in the private sector.

Responsive and Proactive

We will take a proactive approach to customers, based on the nature of enquiries handled. We will treat customers in a more holistic way, recognising that a request for one service can sometimes lead to further information being offered, highlighting other needs.

Simplification

Through the Worcestershire Hub, customers will have a clear point of contact and a simplified way of accessing services. The structure of central and local government can appear complex and this means that customers often do not know where to start when trying to access particular services.  

Choice

Through the Worcestershire Hub, customers will have the choice as to how to access services. We know that customers want to access services in person, over the telephone and increasingly over the web. It is envisaged that centres will be open longer than the traditional "office hours" and this combined with the "self service" option via the portal provides customers with an increase in their choice of when to access services.

Quality of Service

The council aims to improve the quality and consistency of customer service provided, through the introduction of the new Access Channels.

Surroundings

Centres will be open and welcoming to members of the public. The centres will be branded in the same way, and will be decorated in a manner fit for a customer service organisation.

Staff and Service Areas

The changes in the way in which customers will contact the council will bring about changes in the way we work. This requires us to be flexible and willing to embrace these changes.

Progressively initial contacts with customers will only be handled via the customer centres or the web, thereby changing the work required in the service areas. Service areas will deal with customers directly for existing cases.

The introduction of the Customer Centres – one stop shops and telephone contact centres – brings about the need for a new role, that of a Customer Service Advisor. It is this role that will interact with the customer, gather and provide the necessary information to deal with and progress an enquiry. People performing these roles will be customer focused and able to provide a professional service for the customers of Worcestershire. The staff in the centres will handle all types of enquiries covering the complete range of services and therefore significant training and development is required. Another essential to performing this role effectively is to have access to information to deal with the full range of enquiries; this requires a robust and up to date knowledge base to be in place and managed by the service area.

With the Customer Service Advisors dealing with 80% of the enquiries and customers increasingly making use of the portal – the self-service option – time will be freed up in the service areas. Service areas will need to recognise this change when looking at the organisation of their service.

The way in which information is handled and processed will change, service areas will receive information from the centres in a controlled and organised way. Service areas are responsible for ensuring the knowledge base is developed to support both the needs of the Customer Service Advisors and the customers – via the web – thereby ensuring the information used is accurate.

There are many opportunities for making the best use of technology including the flow of information between the centres and the service areas thus providing a better structure to the working day.

Members

Benefits for elected members include:

• using the Customer Centres to meet with customers and hold surgeries which encompass both District and County Council business
• access to the web and the portal as a way of encouraging contact with customers
• using the information associated with customer contacts to focus work in the community
• the opportunity to contact customer service staff with enquiries and queries on behalf of customers
• channel enquiries through the centres or the portal
• improved access to services for all.