There are many types of customers who live, work, volunteer, study, or visit our region. They contact us for a range of different reasons and have varying needs and expectations. When a customer interacts with us, it shapes their experience. These interactions can happen online, by phone, email or face-to-face, and with more than one person in the organisation.

We have had growth across all our service channels over the past five years, including our traditional ones and more significantly in digital channels (request app, online forms and website). A better understanding of these experiences and how they are changing will help us work towards providing more tailored and proactive communications and service channels.

Our survey results and performance data show that we are achieving good outcomes and our customer satisfaction with the quality of council interactions is high. We must continue to improve how we align, communicate, coordinate and collaborate internally to ensure consistency across all areas of Council into the future.

What is customer experience?

It is a customer’s perception and feelings about Council when they interact with our services, systems, and team members.

What is customer service?

It is the help or advice we give to customers wanting to use our services. It is a key piece of the customer experience, but not the only part.

• Providing regular customer feedback opportunities to ensure our services meet customer needs.
• Improving our service request monitoring and responsiveness through training and technology solutions.
• Proactively reviewing our customer service centres and facilities to identify opportunities to improve accessibility and inclusion.
• Providing interpreting and translation services for customers who need additional language assistance.
• Providing an online booking system for customers to check availability and book services such as community meeting and event spaces and sporting facilities.
• Continuously updating data security measures to protect customers’ personal data from cyber security threats.

• Develop a deeper understanding of our customers to inform service design that reduces customer effort and improves their experience.
• Mature our capacity to gather, interpret and embed customer sentiment into organisational decision-making.
• Continue to improve how our customers can engage with us through convenient, easy-to-use customer led service channels.
• Provide a seamless and consistent customer experience across our wide range of services, regardless of who a customer interacts with at Council.
• Ensure every interaction is open and honest, and keeps customers informed throughout their journey.
• Ensure our frontline teams are well-trained, supported and empowered to deliver high-quality customer service.