Our Promise to You
- We will treat you fairly and with respect and will always be courteous and friendly in our approach.
- We will listen and give you our full attention.
- We will have a helpful attitude and wherever possible 'go the extra mile' to ensure your query is resolved.
- We will take responsibility and will not blame others, processes or procedures. If we get things wrong we will apologise.
- We will treat people equally regardless of age, sex, race or religious belief.
- We will make sure that you understand our timescales for dealing with your enquiry; what we have to do, if you need to see anyone else and what the next stage is.
- We will champion your cause as a customer within the Council. We will not expect you to know our procedures and processes and we will act for you within the Council when we receive a query.
Answering your telephone calls
- We aim to answer all your calls within 15 seconds.
- We will respond to telephone messages by the end of the next working day at the latest.
- We will greet you and give you our name and tell you what section we work for.
- Before we end the telephone call we will make sure you are satisfied and know how to contact us again if you need to.
- If we cannot resolve your problem immediately we will take your details and call you back, even if you are using a mobile phone.
- If you are cut off we will phone back immediately wherever possible.
- We will try to avoid passing your call around, and instead take a message and call you back.
- If we have to pass your call onto a colleague we will make sure that we pass on your name and brief details of your enquiry to avoid you having to repeat yourself.
Answering your letters
- We will always write in a clear and concise way to make sure that you understand us. We will avoid using jargon and technical terms wherever possible.
- We will always let you know who to contact.
- We will reply to all correspondence within ten working days. If your query cannot be dealt with we will acknowledge it within ten working days and tell you how long our reply will take.
- Staff working in our One Stop Shop will send an immediate reply to emails and then treat them in the same way as a letter.
- When we respond to you using email, we will use the same professional courtesies as we do when we write to you.
- All our office based staff will wear their name badges at all times when they are in contact with the public so that you can identify us.
When we visit you at home
- Our staff working outside the offices will wear their name badges.
- When we visit you in your home we will identify ourselves using Identity Cards and allow you the opportunity to verify our identity.
- We will make every effort to keep appointments that we have made with you. If we have to cancel the appointment, we will explain why we could not attend and re-arrange the appointment.
Dealing with difficult situations
- We will support Council staff who are confronted with rude or aggressive customers.
You can download a PDF version of our Customer Care Charter.
