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Corporate customer service charter

Our standard of service to you

We aim to deliver high standards of service to all of our customers. Set out below are the corporate standards of service you can expect when contacting us.

When you contact us

We will:

  • respect your rights to confidentiality, privacy and safety
  • not discriminate because of your race, age, sex, disability, religion or sexual orientation
  • always try to deal with you in a polite and courteous way
  • aim to resolve 80% of enquiries at the first point of contact
  • respond to telephone enquiries within two days and if we're not able to provide a full response to your enquiry, we will give an indication of when it will be given *

Access to our services

We provide access to information about all Council services online.

We enable and encourage our customers to serve themselves by providing an easy and efficient option.

We enable customers to provide feedback easily, through customer surveys, focus groups, feedback, consultations and improved complaint handling.

If you wish to speak to specific technical or professional staff or a particular person we can not guarantee they will be available unless a prior appointment has been made.

We will keep to pre-arranged appointments or if we need to change an appointment, we will let you know in advance and make another appointment.

When we make visits to your home or business premises

We will produce proper Council identification.

We will always behave in a respectful and courteous manner.

When we write to you

We aim to provide a full reply to letters, e-mails and online enquiries within ten working days. Where this is not possible, your letter, e-mail or online enquiry will be acknowledged and will indicate when a full response will be given.*

We aim to make our replies clear and understandable.

What we expect from you

Council staff will try very hard to maintain these standards of service to you. In return, we expect our customers to behave reasonably.

Staff are not required to deal with customers who are verbally or physically abusive and such behaviour could result in services being withdrawn or access to Council premises being denied.

Customer feedback

We are committed to improvement, therefore we will treat compliments, comments and complaints positively and use them to improve our services. Information on how you can provide us with feedback is available at all reception desks or by asking any member of staff.

Customer Experience Strategy

Our Digital Strategy 2020-2025 (PDF) incorporates our Customer Experience Strategy and outlines our customer service priorities:

  • Understand our customers
  • Digital first
  • Keep the customer informed
  • Be open to all