COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, October 13, 2014
QUESTION NO. 27
QUESTION: Councillor D. O'Donovan
To ask the Chief Executive what is the duty of care owed by SDCC to it’s customers? What instructions do staff receive regarding answering queries and emails raised by the public? How often do emails/phonecalls go unanswered? Are there plans to improve customer relations?
REPLY:
South Dublin County Council’s Customer Service Action Plan is based on the principle of serving the customer better. It sets out a framework for South Dublin County Council and the work of its Elected Members and staff. It is the Council’s Plan for a standard of excellence in public service which our citizens and customers deserve.The Plan seeks to better facilitate interaction between the Council and those we serve.
Customers can submit their queries to the council through a variety of platforms including:
Council Website/Social Media Pages
Through our website www.sdcc.ie , customers can make an enquiry, a comment / suggestion or complaint about our operations; by contacting us online through the Customer Care section of our website or on our Social Media Platforms. If customers use the Customer Contact Form, we aim to reply with an acknowledgment within 2 working days.
Customers can forward their enquiry by email to info@sdublincoco.ie , 7,942emails were received since the 1st January 2014, at the time of writing this reply, 7,762 have been listed as closed off with 180 open: 142 overdue and 38 open and within time deadline.
Fix your street
Issues relating to the criteria below can be submitted directly to www.fixyourstreet.ie and we will reply with an acknowledgment through the Fix your street website to these reports within 2 working days. Since January 2014, 2,731 queries have been received.
• Road and footpath maintenance
• Litter and graffiti removal
• Drainage or leaks
• Tree and grass maintenance,
Customer Care Centres
Customers can talk to us in person; we operate Customer Care Centres at County Hall, Tallaght and the Clondalkin Civic Centre. A dedicated team of staff are available to help members of the public with their enquiries. Usually we can deal with an enquiry without the need for onward referral. However, if the enquiry is of a specialised nature, we can of course arrange for customers to meet with appropriate staff. Since January 2014 to present we have dealt with 22,642 customers at our customer care centres
Telephone
A dedicated team of staff is available to answer telephone enquiries without onward referral. The contact telephone number for all our services is 01-4149000. The Council since January 2014 has received 122,490 incoming calls with 2.42% of calls dropped during this period, this figure is higher than in previous years due to Industrial Action throughout May and June and the high volume of calls generated by the Non Principal Private Residence deadline for registration at the end of August beginning of September 2014.
An emergency contact number is also available after hours and weekends. The number is 01 4574907.
Standards of Service
The standards of service outlined in our Customer Service Action Plan aim to insure that whether your business is conducted in person, by e-mail, by telephone or by post the Council acknowledges that Customers are at all times entitled to be served:
- Without delay and in a polite manner
- With due regard to privacy and confidentiality
- By friendly and helpful staff
E-Mail / Web / Fix Your Street Enquires
We aim to
- Acknowledge immediately and issue a response within 2 working days. If this is not possible, we will state when we hope to be able to do so. We will also explain the reason for the delay
- Write as clearly as possible
- Only use technical terms where it is absolutely necessary
- Ensure that all interactions give contact name and details
- Respond in Irish to queries submitted in Irish
Telephone
We aim to:
- Answer quickly and courteously
- Provide the information required in a helpful manner
- Deal with the enquiry without passing the call to another extension
- Take your enquiry, e-mail address and telephone number and write or call back if the enquiry cannot be answered quickly
- Indicate when you can expect to hear from us and arrange to call at a time, which is convenient to you
- Give contact names in all telephone communications to ensure ease of ongoing transactions
- Provide a voice mail service for staff who are out of their office
Through all of the procedures and initiatives contained in our Customer Service Action Plan, we aim to empower and encourage our staff to deliver excellence in customer service delivery. However we acknowledge that sometimes the system may not function as well as expected and included in the plan we have an accessible, transparent and user-friendly customer complaints procedure for people who are dissatisfied with our quality of service. It is important that we learn from our mistakes and we quickly resolve difficulties and improve the services we offer by reviewing our business processes to ensure we enhance the customer’s experience of dealing with South Dublin County Council. We have a facility for our Citizens and Elected Members to provide comments or suggestions to help us improve our services by completing the Comment Form on our webpage.
The current Customer Service Action Plan was drafted to reflect the Council’s commitment to customer service as outlined in our Corporate Plan 2010- 2014 and the plan will shortly be reviewed as part of the new Corporate Plan 2015- 2019 process in consultation with our citizens, elected members and staff.