Our Customer Promise

We will always:

• Give you our name and section
• Be polite, helpful and honest, as we would expect you to be
• Treat you with respect, as we would like to be treated
• Treat you fairly
• Take responsibility for assisting you and not pass you around
• Listen to your views
• Make it clear what we can and cannot do
• Be accountable for the service we provide
• Consider your needs when designing our services
• Admit when things go wrong and do our best to put them right

Telephones

• We aim to answer your call within 5 rings during our published office hours
• We aim to resolve your enquiry at the first point of contact – or someone will call you back within an agreed time scale
• If you leave us a message we will try to get back to you within one working day
• We aim never to let a phone go unanswered during our published office hours

Letters, emails and faxes

• We aim to provide a full response to letters in under 10 working days
• If we can’t, we will send you an acknowledgement after five days telling you who is dealing with the matter and when to expect a full reply
• We will always try to use plain language, and give you our contact details
• Faxes and Emails are treated like letters
• We will ensure emails have our name, job title, telephone number, and website address

Face to face

• We aim to start dealing with your enquiry within 15 minutes at our One Stop Shops and other receptions
• If you prefer not to wait, we will offer you an appointment at a time to suit you (where possible)
• We will try to see you promptly if you arrive on time – and will not make you wait if it can be avoided
• We will see you in a private area if you prefer – although you may need to book or wait
• We will provide you with translation and interpreting services should you require them
• All our reception staff will wear name badges

Service standards

• We will let you know what to expect from us
• We ask you to provide us with any information we request to help us give you the service you require

Listening

• We will find ways to listen to your views about our services and will publish the results
• We will carry out independent mystery shopping exercises and act on the results
• We will make it easier for you to comment on our services by introducing comment cards
• And if things go wrong, we will make it easy for you to complain and will do our best to put things right
• Stage 1 Complaints will be dealt with in 10 working days and Stage 2 and 3 in 20 working days

Visits

• You will be offered a choice of morning or afternoon when requesting an appointment, including specific times where possible and evening and weekend appointments where we can
• If you are out when we visit, we will leave a card with our contact details
• We will show you identity cards so you know who we are
• We will treat your home with respect

Benefits

• Benefit applications will be dealt with in 14 days.