Customer Experience Framework

Download the Customer Experience Framework

About Calderdale

It is a beautiful area in West Yorkshire, between Leeds and Manchester. There are unique natural landscapes, vibrant towns, a thriving cultural and arts scene. and diverse and resilient communities.

• It is part of the Leeds City Region.
• Although a small borough in the number of people (206,600), it covers a large area (140 square miles). Over 80% of this is rural.
• We have a rich mix of diverse cultures, which includes those from East Europe, Asia and Africa.
• Three quarters of the population live in urban areas.

The Council employs nearly 3,000 people and works with partners and communities. We supply over six hundred services for people at every stage of their lives, including residents, businesses, schools and visitors.

Context

Why do we need this framework? Because our Vision is for a place defined by our innate kindness and how our people care for each other.

We want to make sure all our customers, whatever their needs, have a good experience when they interact with us. Whether your voice was heard in the past or not!

The way we deliver customer service is core to us providing public services that are efficient and effective. This is for all staff, not just those who answer phone calls or see customers face to face.

We strive to offer high quality services, but how satisfied customers are with some services we deliver can vary.

The framework is to:

• Make sure a shared understanding of what a good customer experience feels like.
• Outline what is needed to achieve this and learn from both internal and external best practice.

Embed a good standard of service delivery that is resilient, efficient, consistent, fair and inclusive.

Our Key Challenges and Opportunities

Council resources

The need for us to provide high quality customer service does not go away as our funding becomes more limited. We must find economic ways for you to contact us and be clear about what we can and cannot do. You will then know when and how to get in touch and what to expect from us.

Cost of living

Rising costs combine with disadvantages and vulnerability that exist in our communities. This puts many households at risk of hardship, reduced opportunity and well-being.

We want to make sure support can be easily accessed by those who need it.

Increased demand and what our customers expect

Customers expect access to services 24-hours a day, seven days a week via our website and social media. They want services that are flexible and meet their needs.

We need to manage this demand, but also make the best use of limited resources. This will be vital if we are to make you experience better going forward.

Digital exclusion

Some people cannot find our information and services online. This can be due to no Internet access at home or they have accessibility needs that hinder them.

We will find ways to help them by having equipment and support at our public buildings.

Equality of access

Our communities are diverse and we need to work hard to find any barriers to access and support needs.

This will allow us to know our customers' needs and respond in a way that is respectful, appropriate and efficient.

Listen to our customers

We need to capture your comments and feedback, then use it to improve services.

Use what we know about our customers to shape service delivery

Customers contact us in many ways. We need to make the best use of the information about this contact and in a timely way. This is so we can better understand what they need and to inform our service delivery.

Our Customers in 2021/22

By this we mean any user of council services and includes residents, visitors, businesses, students and service users.

• 206,600 population from the 2021 Census.
• 36,746 children who go to school.
• 96,095 Council Tax payers.
• 9,554 Business Rate payers.
• 47,500 refuse collections each week.
• 95,000 recycling collections each week.
• 1,942 face-to-face contacts with out Customer First.
• 3,642 queries via social media answered by our Customer First.
• 56,536 emails received by our Contact Centre.
• 215,196 phone calls taken by our Contact Centre.
• 402,111 Forms completed via our website.
• Almost 7 million website visits.

Our Customer Promise

Our goal of "Getting it right first time, every time" is the driving force behind our commitment to our customers. It outlines the standards and principles we follow to provide services that meet our customers' needs.

To create this promise, we spoke with customers through online and paper surveys, as well as in-person interviews. Our customers told us what they value most when they contact the council.

These standards and principles apply not only to staff who work directly with customers, but to all council staff. This includes support services like Human Resources, IT & Digital, Finance and Health & Safety. This ensures a consistent approach to providing the best customer experience possible.

You can help us to keep our promise if you:

• Treat us and other customers with respect.
• Inform us of any specific needs.
• Give us all the information we need to help you.
• Give us feedback on our service so we can learn and improve.

Calderdale Council's Customer Promise

We will be clear how you can contact us and access our services

We will:

• Communicate with you online (email/website/social media) where possible. This means you will get responses quickly and in a way that is convenient for you.
• Find the best way to help you if you have specific access needs.
• Make sure our services are inclusive and responsive.

We will get things done

We will:

• Aim to answer your query when you first contact us. If we cannot do this, we will tell you clearly what will happen next.
• Make sure our staff have the tools, skills and behaviours to deliver the service you need.
• Keep you informed with up-to-date information about the services you use.

Continuously review our performance

• Customer satisfaction and ease of access.
• Compliments, complaints and feedback.
• Information about how our customers contact us.
• Surveys and engagement with results published on our website.

We will listen to you and treat you with respect

We will:

• Be clear and easy to understand in all our contact with you.
• Give you confidence that your data is secure.
• Work with other services internally and across Calderdale to make it easier for you to get the help you need.

Please tell us how we are doing

• We welcome all feedback especially when things do not go right. We will ensure this information is used to improve our services.
• If you would like to supply a detailed compliment or complaint, please contact The Complaints and Compliments Team.

Ways to contact us - Our standards

Website

We will:

• Aim to have our website available 24 hours a day, all year round.
• Continually review and improve our online services to meet your needs.
• Make sure our online services are accessible and easy to use.

Written communication

We will:

• Make sure all service email addresses have an 'automatic reply' that clearly explains what will happen next.
• Aim to keep average response times within ten working days. At busier times, we will let you know how long you may have to wait.

Phones

We will:

• Aim to keep the average time you wait to be answered under 10 minutes. At busier times, we will let you know how long you may have to wait.
• Update phone messages often, to give you with right information.
• Aim to respond to voicemails within one working day.

In person

We will:

• Make sure our public buildings are welcoming, safe, accessible and they make it easy to get the help you need.
• Make sure our staff wear a name badge, so you can easily identify them.
• If busy, let you know how long you might have to wait to be get help.

Social media

We will:

• Respond to queries as quickly as possible.
• Protect your privacy.

We will let you know other ways to contact us if there is a problem with any of the above.

What we are doing now

Improve our communication with customers

We are committed to this for residents and key stakeholders by putting people at the heart of our communications. We will listen to you and make sure you are at the forefront of our minds when we are replying. This is to establish a real two-way relationship, based on trust.

We have started conducting quality assurance on our responses to formal complaints to make sure they meet the agreed standards. This will:

• Improve the quality of responses that customers get from us.
• Reduce the number of complaints that are escalated to the next stage or the Ombudsman. We know this can frustrate customers and it is costly for us.

Many officers across the council have attended training delivered by the Ombudsman to improve their investigation skills. This has resulted in:

• an improvement in the quality of complaint responses to customers;
• and a reduction in the need for customers to escalate their complaints.

Our staff must now do training to help them understand what customer service excellence looks and feels like. We also using customer journey mapping to better understand your experience of interacting with us. This allows us to continually check how we can improve your experience.

Our Corporate Leadership Team meets regularly to discuss matters affecting the organisation. Issues affecting the customer are given a high priority to allow swift action.

We commit to making sure nobody is left behind and give customers choices to access our services. We will also make sure theses are available at times and places to suit you.

We are working to improve our website in line with the principles set up by the Government Digital Service. This is to make it easy for people to use and do what they need to do. We will make sure:

• User needs come first.
• Data insight is used to shape content.
• The user journey and our content is kept simple, and accessible.

We know customers expect to be able to do things digitally. So, we have a range of online facilities and ways to contact us. We can help customers with this in our libraries and Customer First offices.

What we will do next

Delivering excellent customer service is a continual process of culture change. We will be constantly reviewing, redesigning, monitoring, training, learning and listening.

Here are some examples of the actions already planned:

Work with customers to find out what 'excellent service' is to them

We want our customers to be satisfied with the way our services are delivered. So we need to be sure that we know:

• what our customers value;
• and what excellent customer service means to them.

Through engagement in a range of ways, we will seek views from a range of customers that represent Calderdale's diversity.

Develop and promote digital by design communications and transactions

We continue to invest in and promote the use of simple online services so customers can self-serve. This means we can deliver services in ways that are convenient for you. Some service areas have developed their technological capability to ensure their whole process is digital, reducing delays for customers. This is in place for some Highways and Environmental Health transactions that are suitable.

To use technology in the most effective way, it is important that we understand:

• our customers' needs;
• and their contact with the council.

Sometimes, it may not be the best choice to communicate via digital channels. So, we will:

• Carefully examine what types of contact with us are right ones to digitise.
• Make sure any digital services are accessible to everyone, especially the most vulnerable, by providing help and support.

Improve face-to-face support

We have developed some inexpensive, but important changes. These should make it easier for customers to access the help they need at our Customer First Office in Halifax. They will also make the free digital access facilities easier for customers to find and access. This will offer better support for customers who do not have other ways to get online.

Face-to-face support is also available in libraries across the borough.

We will:

• Continue to analyse and assess our customer access points.
• Take into account customer needs and efficient use of our resources.

We know the importance of showing empathy and consideration when we deal with people who are going through difficult situations. We will make sure they get the support and guidance they need in the near future.

How we will know we are getting things right

We will track our progress against this framework using a number of sources of data and information. From this, we will access whether we are getting things right.

Listen to our customers

This is the most important way for us to know if the work we are doing is making things better. We will ask you for feedback, analyse it and recommend actions. The feedback we will use includes:

• Results from the annual survey, which measures resident satisfaction levels. We can compare this against national results, through the Local Government Association's Resident survey.
• Service specific satisfaction surveys.
• Use of information we collect and evaluate via our Complaints and Compliments Team.

Listen to our Councillors

Our elected Councillors are the eyes and ears of local people. They know what problems and issues exist in their wards.

We will work with them to find areas we can improve on to make sure delivery of services is effective.

Listen to our staff

Our staff are often best placed to understand customer preferences. So, their feedback is important to measure if we have improved.

We will collect staff feedback, both formally and informally through:

• employee surveys;
• regular team meetings;
• and we will encourage a culture of open communication.

Make effective use of our data

We gather a lot of data about our customer transactions and contact. To make best use of this data we will regularly measure and evaluate metrics which relate to customer contact. These will include:

• Complaints and compliments received and the root causes, trends and themes.
• Complaint response times.
• Volumes and demand by each type of contact and adapt to peaks and troughs, if necessary.
• Customer journey mapping, both ideal states and what is in place now.