Our Customer Focus

Listening to what you say...

We are always looking for ways to improve our service to customers. Part of the improvement is listening to what our Customers say . A postal survey and discussion groups with our Residents Panel, in early 2005, concluded:

Overall, Customer service was rated well
70% of customers still prefer to contact us by telephone
60% of the Panel had contacted the Council within the last 12 months with an enquiry and 27% with a complaint,.
Two thirds were satisfied with the way their enquiry was dealt
41% satisfied with the way their complaint was handled.

Customers wanted:

A Customer Charter setting out service levels and customer care standards;
Better response times to enquiries;
To know the name and extension number of the person they are dealing with;
Details of how and when their enquiry will be dealt with
Better complaints handling
More knowledgeable staff;
Phone calls to be returned.

So what are we doing:

Re-designing our Corporate Complaints leaflet.
Centralising complaints handling to help identify key issues for service improvements
Launching a Customer Charter
Planning more customer feedback exercises and mystery shopping exercises in the future. The first of these will be a MORI questionnaire in the Autumn.

For more information please visit our Talkback Bexley section, or e-mail us at ConsultationTeam@bexley.gov.uk.