COUNCIL chiefs are celebrating after Wychavon District Council was once again been recognised for its commitment to customer service.
The council was awarded Customer Service Excellence status for the 13th year in a row following a recent assessment.
Earlier this year Wychavon launched a new drive on improving the quality of customer service including a new Customer Charter, so staff and residents know what to expect from each other.
There has also been a renewed focus on helping solve customer queries at the first time of asking, increasing response times and reducing backlogs in processing Council Tax and Revenues and Benefits applications.
Customer Service Excellence status is run by the Cabinet Office and tests organisations against 57 criteria across five service areas of timeliness, delivery, information, professionalism and staff attitude. Compliance with 80% of criteria must be achieved and an organisation cannot fail in any area.
The assessment found Wychavon was compliant with the criteria in all categories and exceeded what was expected in four areas – putting the customer at the heart of service delivery, empowering staff to actively promote and participate in the customer focused culture of the council, strong partnership arrangements to co-ordinate services for the benefit of the customer and identifying dips in performance and putting actions in place to rectify them.
Coun Emma Stokes, executive board member for Resident and Customer Service on Wychavon District Council, said: “This is a great achievement for Wychavon, especially in these difficult times of growing demand and pressure on our staff.
“I want to thank our staff who are passionate about their work and dedicated to delivering the best possible service to our residents and businesses.
“We will keep working hard to improve our performance and to make the customer our top priority.”
