Our Customer Promise
Our Customer Promise has been developed and tested with staff and customers to set out realistic and achievable customer service standards, which are underpinned by a clear set of customer values. Read below for our Customer Promise.
Our Customer Values
We will:
Be responsive and consistent - listen and understand your needs, take ownership of your enquiry, answer your query or deal with your problem as soon as possible, and keep you up to date with what we are doing.
Treat you with fairness and respect - be friendly, polite and helpful, and get you to the right person quickly, say sorry if we get things wrong and do our best to put it right.
Be transparent and accountable - use plain language when we communicate with you, provide clear, complete and accurate information about our services, be honest about what we can and can’t do, and explain our decisions.
Provide value for money services and knowledgeable staff - do what we say we will do to a high standard, make best use of our resources, including making it easier to access our information and services via online and digital channels 24 hours a day everyday of the year.
Our Customer Service Standards
By social media, email and electronic forms on the website
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Your enquiry via social media, email or electronic form will be directed to the right team within one working day.
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We will send an acknowledgement so you know we’ve received your message (this might be an automatic response) and will reply within 10 working days.
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If we can’t resolve everything we will write within 10 working days to let you know what we will do next and when you can expect a full reply.
On the phone
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We will answer the phone promptly, either personally or using an answerphone service. If we are exceptionally busy it may take us longer than usual to answer your call. Where possible, we will tell you of the wait time.
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We will greet you with the name of the person you are speaking to and the name of the service so you know you’ve reached the right place.
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If we need to transfer you to someone else, we’ll explain why and give you their name and their telephone number.
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If you leave an answerphone message, we will respond to you to let you know we’ve received your message.
By letter
- We will reply within 10 working days. If we can’t resolve everything we will write to let you know we have received your letter and let you know what we will do next and when you can expect a full reply.
Visiting us
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Wherever possible we will make our buildings accessible to everyone.
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We will make your visit as comfortable as possible and will provide a welcoming, clean and safe environment at our offices.
Complaints
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If you tell us we have got something wrong we will investigate it impartially and fairly.
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We’ll acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and will aim to complete our investigation within 20 working days.
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Where we’ve got something wrong we will do our best to put it right and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Further information
Social media
We also have a policy for how we respond to social media.
How to contact us
You may want to speak to someone about a service you are receiving. There are details on how to contact us by online form, phone or if you are visiting.
Complaints and Feedback about Adult Social Care, Children's Services and Councillors
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