Customer Service Charter

When you contact us, we will:

• treat you with respect, courtesy, and friendliness
• offer a variety of ways to access our services, including a quicker and easier online experience
• ensure our information is in a format that can be easily accessed and understood, avoiding the use of jargon, and explaining any complex technical terms
• provide clear advice about our services; how we can help you, how long it will take and how we will keep you informed
• respond to your contact within our published timescales
• explain our decisions and the reasons for them clearly
• resolve your enquiry the first time you contact us whenever possible, and helping you to track its progress
• admit when things go wrong and do our best to put them right
• manage any complaints with professionalism, learning lessons when we fall short of our standards
• enable you to provide feedback easily, through customer surveys, focus groups, feedback, and consultations
• respect your rights to privacy and confidentiality

You can give us feedback

Make a comment or compliment

Make a complaint

To help us, we would like you to:

• treat us politely and with respect however you engage with us
• provide us with 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, notifying us if you are unable to attend
• tell us when things go wrong
• let us know if you have received outstanding service
• understand that we will not tolerate abusive language or threatening behaviour towards our staff or other people using our services and that we will act, including prosecution if necessary

Service standards

In using services online, you can expect that we will:

• make it easy to use and accessible 24/7
• enable you to report issues, pay, book, update, apply for and more
• enable you to track progress of your requests
• provide access to council news, information, decisions, and consultations
• give you help and support to access and use the self-service elements of our website

If you contact us on 01256 844844, we will:

• be available between 8.30am and 4.30pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays)
• aim to answer your call within 30 seconds
• aim to answer your query there and then. If we cannot answer your enquiry or transfer you to the right person straight away we will take your details and ask someone to contact you
• when returning your calls, staff will clearly state their first name, their section, and their reason for calling
• when we return your calls, caller identification will show 01256 844844. If you are unavailable, we will leave a message if we can.
• if we need to transfer the call, we will tell you who we are transferring you to and check that they are available before putting the call through
• provide customers who have a hearing impairment with access to an alternative system, Relay UK
• out of hours your call will be transferred to our out of hours service, for emergencies only

If you call a direct dial number, we will:

• aim to answer calls within 60 seconds
• if your call is unanswered, you will be able to leave a voicemail message. We will respond to your voicemail messages before close of business on the next working day, or if we are out of the office, within 24 hours of our return

If you email, we will:

• aim to respond to all emails received by our Corporate Contact Centre within 48 working hours
• aim to respond to your email within seven working days if a response is required. If detailed research or a technical response is required, the member of staff will acknowledge the email within 48 hours advising the time needed to formally respond

If you use social media, we will:

• aim to respond to service requests raised via our social media within four working hours - our social media rules cover how we respond to other comment

If you contact us by letter, we will:

• respond to you within 10 working days. You will either receive a full response to your enquiry or you will be given details of who is dealing with the matter and how long they will need to respond fully

If you visit us, we will:

• see you at the appointed time (visits to reception are by appointment only apart from homeless presentations)
• if there is a delay of more than five minutes in seeing you, we will explain why and keep you informed
• provide a clean, tidy, and comfortable waiting area and wherever possible a space for you to see us in private if it is safe to do so
• help you to get online if this meets you needs
• arrange appointments if you need to see someone else
• confirm the appointment in writing, normally by email and/or SMS text
• send you a reminder about the appointment by email and/or SMS 24 hours beforehand

If we visit you, we will:

• agree an appointment time with you and provide you with the name and contact details of the person visiting you in advance, unless there is a specific reason, we are unable to do this
• show you our identity card before coming into your home
• tell you as soon as possible if we are delayed or must postpone or cancel a visit

In relation to complaints, we will:

• always acknowledge your complaint, and provide you with a reference number
• aim to respond to all complaints within 10 working days. If we need longer, we will tell you why. We will also let you know who is dealing with your complaint and when we will reply
• resolve our issue quickly and informally, whenever possible
• use learning from complaints to improve overall customer service and service delivery
• support your right to raise unresolved complaints with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and respond fully to any issues they raise with us in response to your complaint

To protect your confidentiality, we will:

• ensure that all our staff are appropriately trained
• handle all information you provide to us sensitively and confidentially
• manage all your information in accordance with legislation
• make sure that your information will not be discussed with any unauthorised person
• ask you to provide only relevant information and explain why we need it
• investigate and respond to any concerns you may have about your personal data

Freedom of information (FOI) requests

• We will supply information requested in Freedom of Information requests within 20 working days, except in exceptional circumstances
• In such circumstances, we will contact you to let you know why it is going to take longer than 20 days to collate the information requested, or if there are reasons why it is not appropriate to release all the information requested
• We will explain why we are not releasing the information, if that is the case, and explain the appeal process

Translation and interpretation

• If English is not your first language and you need help in understanding any of the services the council delivers, we offer written, telephone or face-to-face language interpretation services