Council staff to seek feedback from customers

Next week is National Customer Services Week and this year Plymouth City Council is pulling out all the stops; events, focus groups, competitions, prizes and much, much more.

From Monday 7 to Friday 11 October the Council will be encouraging more people to provide feedback on their services. Customers coming into the Civic Centre will be able to speak with staff to tell them their experiences with the Council.

Customers will be asked about their experiences with specific services including waste, public transport, highways and adult social care and make suggestions for improvement.

Throughout the week, customers will also have the chance to input into the redevelopment of the Council’s customer service standards. These standards will include targets for how the Council will respond to customer contact. Having customer input at the development stage of the standards allows the Council to include their customer’s needs as the focus of their targets.

Telephone and web users will also get the opportunity to complete a short feedback survey with results being reviewed and considered to help improve service standards.

Customers who provide the Council with feedback will be offered the chance to be entered into a prize draw to win some great prizes, all have which have been donated by local companies, these include, tickets to Plymouth Argyle, tickets to the National Aquarium, paint balling and bottle of wine and bouquets of flowers.

To further enhance the experience for customers visiting the Civic Centre a number of displays and demonstrations have been arranged in the reception foyer. These include the Devon & Cornwall Fire Service, Plymouth Waste and Recycling Team, Plymouth Energy Community, Plymouth Sports Development Unit and Shelter. There will also be the opportunity to sign-up to the Electoral Register for those not currently listed.

Throughout the week Councillors will be going back to the floor. They will be listening, and even taking some telephone calls and observing counter staff at work

Councillor Peter Smith, Cabinet Member for Customer Services said: “It is great to see that once again we are recognising National Customer Services Week and taking the opportunity to show how we value our customers. As a Co-operative Council it is important that we engage customers when shaping and improving our services.

“The message that we want to give is that every one of our customers is important and this week provides us with a great opportunity to not only show that but also seek our customers views on what we do well, and what we could improve.”

“Our Customer Services Team has recently been successful in being re-awarded the Customer Service Excellence Award. This recognises the hard work our Customer Services staff do to continually improve the service that they offer to our customers.”

The council’s call centre handles more than 500,000 calls a year and a further 84,000 visitors go to the Civic Centre.

For more information about exhibitions on display at the Civic Centre during the week is available at www.plymouth.gov.uk/customerserviceweek.