Customer charter

Our customer charter

We are committed to providing a consistently high standard of service. We promise to put our customers at the heart of everything we do. Our charter sets out our commitment to you:

• To communicate and engage with you proactively, being open, honest and transparent, recognising confidentiality.
• Understand and respond to your personal circumstances, being polite, supportive and professional, treating everyone consistently and fairly.

Customer service standards

We are committed to ensuring that you experience the best possible customer service. When you contact us, we want to make sure that:

• We are friendly and approachable.
• We listen carefully and not be judgemental.
• We treat you fairly.
• We use plain language.
• We respect your confidentiality and safeguard your personal information.
• We give timely, clear, and accurate information about our services to help you make informed choices.
• We make reasonable adjustments to give you equal access to information, services, and our buildings.

Responding to your enquiry

If you call us:

• We will aim to answer your call in a timely way.
• We will attempt to deal with your query without passing you on to someone else.
• If we must transfer you, we will tell you who you are being transferred to and why.

If you email or write:

• We aim to respond within ten working days. If this is not possible, we will write to tell you why and to let you know how long we expect it will take to respond fully.

If we are out of the office and you email:

• We will set up an ‘out of office’ automatic reply, giving the following details:
  • A date when we will be back in the office.
  • An alternative contact that may be able to help you while we are away.

If you visit us:

If you need to see someone in person, this would be done by booking an appointment with the relevant service. However if you visit the council office without an appointment we will:

• See you as soon as we can and always try to acknowledge that you are waiting.
• We will attempt to deal with your query without passing you on to someone else.
• If this is not possible, we will explain why you are being passed on and to which team.
• If we cannot resolve your query on the day we will endeavour to book you an appointment for a suitable time.

If we visit you in your home:

• We will provide you details of the person or company visiting you in advance, unless it is inappropriate to do so.
• We will agree an appointment time with you and keep you informed if a delay occurs.
• You can check the identity of the person visiting you with them directly or by contacting us.

What we expect of our customers

• Treat us politely and with respect; aggressive behaviour or inappropriate language will not be tolerated.
• To help us reduce costs and offer value for money for our customers we encourage the use of our online services wherever possible.
• Have an understanding that the council's resources are limited and that we must prioritise the work we carry out.
• Provide us with all the information we need to help you.
• Ask us to explain anything you are not sure of.
• Keep any appointments that you have with us, and notify us if you are unable to attend.
• Once you have established contact with us through one of our advertised routes, direct all correspondence through an agreed single route.