Responding to your needs
We would like to hear from you about how we can improve our services.
What you like about our services
You can read about our services and priorities for developing them in Trading Standards – policies and plans.
- Local businesses support all of our priorities, in particular our Buy With Confidence and Support With Confidence schemes for approving traders.
- Consumers support all of our priorities. You said that you are being kept informed about progress on your enquiries and that the information we provided was clear and helpful. Consumers with particular problems said that the Community Safety Pack contained the right information to help them resolve a matter with a trader, and that our speed of response and personal assistance on a complaint against a trader enabled it to be resolved effectively.
- Older people particularly support our work on No Cold Calling Zones and help from our Rapid Action Team. You also fully endorse our approved trader schemes and work to deal with scams.
- Young people value the new Trading Standards web pages focused on their needs.
- Ethnic communities prefer to sort out their own issues but welcomed more information about the service and what it does.
- Farmers prefer making appointments for personal visits by our officers, and getting information through the Defra partnership. They would also like to see information at markets and agricultural suppliers.
- Special needs groups support our priorities but more involvement is needed through carers and support groups for carers.
- Website users say the site has improved, with 87% finding the site giving easier access to information and 63% finding the information they were looking for. We will continue to develop the website with a focus on the key groups who prefer this method of communication.
What you don't like
- Sometimes people have not been kept informed of the progress of their enquiry.
- You don't like being referred to another person who can deal with your enquiry, as you would prefer to get an answer directly.
- The main issue for farmers is duplication of work with other agencies and the need for a more joined-up approach to inspection.
Your priorities
In a survey in 2011, we asked you what our priorities should be for developing our services. We received 164 responses from local people who told us:
- dealing with misleading prices in shops is now most important to you, rising from 77% to 86%
- dealing with scams is the second most important priority for our work (85%)
- support for using approved traders has been maintained at 72%, and checking underage sales has stabilised at 80%
- support for more No Cold Calling Zones has fallen from 85% to 70% which may reflect our success in reducing doorstep selling
- our Local Life Show – although a relatively low priority in relation to the other key priorities – has increased in importance from 34% to 43% which may reflect the higher number of people attending this event
- food sampling has grown from 76% to 80% importance which may reflect interest in knowing what our food is made out of.
Your feedback has helped us to develop our priorities and business plan for 2011 to 2012. We will also continue to improve our website pages especially for younger people, and for those who prefer this way of using our services. For more information, see Trading Standards – policies and plans.
How we've improved our services
We've received over 500 responses from you over the last three years giving us an insight into your needs and priorities. As a result we've implemented a programme for improving customer services and have already made significant changes:
- we've set customer-care standards for all our staff that are independently verified through the Customer Excellence Award scheme
- we have a duty officer team to respond to your enquiries directly and procedures to make sure you are kept up to date with progress on your enquiry
- we publish our enforcement policy on this website, and can provide you with a printed copy on request
- we make appointments to visit vulnerable people and their carers in their homes so that they can access the same level of service as anyone else
- for local businesses, we can make appointments to visit your premises to provide advice on the law, discuss your concerns and minimise disruption to your work
- we've maintained and developed contacts with key representative groups to improve the way we focus our resources to your needs and place customers at the heart of our service
- we've improved our customer care with an overall satisfaction level of 85%, up from 78% in 2009
- we respond to 87% of letters and emails within five working days, up from 78% in 2009 and 2010
- 84% said that we understood their enquiry and 79% said we gave clear advice on how to resolve their issue.
Our standards for responding to your enquiries
For more information about how we deal with your comments and how you can contact us, see our page how to contact Trading Standards.
East Sussex County Council