Issue - meetings

To gain approval for a revised customer feedback policy.

(Report attached)

RECOMMENDED that

the Customer Feedback Policy as set out in Appendix 1 to the report be approved.

The Committee considered proposals for a revised Customer Feedback Policy, to deal more effectively with comments, complaints and compliments.

The Head of Customer Services explained how a streamlined but more responsive process, supported by updated IT solutions, would be more accessible, more consistent, and therefore more satisfactory, for customers.

Some concern was expressed at the loss of the Member Panel final stage of the existing complaints process, but Members generally agreed that this unnecessarily lengthened complaints processes and that, rather than the existing 3-stage process, it was preferable to aim to achieve a high quality response at the very first stage.

During consideration of this matter a strong plea was made for ‘Crystal English’ letters to be sent to Customers, as Members had sometimes felt Officers’ letters to be hard to understand. In this respect, Officers were referred to the readability checks available to them on word processing systems.

RECOMMENDED that

the Customer Feedback Policy as set out in Appendix 1 to the report be approved.