Modernised customer services in partnership

The Councils' first ever  'Joint Customer Access Strategy' maps out how both will make services even easier to use by taking advantage of available technology and tailoring them to meet the needs of different people and groups.

The Strategy has been agreed by the Cabinets of both Councils and follows the publication of 'Business Plans' earlier this year which themselves reflected on the importance of getting the customer experience right.

Cllr Frank Mortimer , Waveney's Cabinet Member for Customers & Communities said: "We want the services we provide to our customers to be consistently excellent and this means involving our communities and customers in addressing the different local needs across our two districts. This is a pledge we made in our Councils' Business Plans and this strategy sets out the principles we will follow to achieve it.

"At the heart of this approach is an increased emphasis on the great benefits of technology. We want to help and encourage the people of Waveney and Suffolk Coastal to serve themselves, while still ensuring that they can also speak with us face to face, in writing and by phone."

Cllr Doreen Savage, Suffolk Coastal's Cabinet Member for Customers and Communities, said: "We will shape our services so that they can be accessed in ways and at times which suit the customer.  This more modern approach, utilising technology wherever possible, is also a way to deliver some real savings for the council tax payer.

"However, this does not mean that we will not be offering our usual excellent customer services by the more traditional methods of telephone and face to face contact. We appreciate that new technological methods are not for everyone and with this in mind, we will be offering customers a choice of methods by which to contact their Council. The traditional methods will still be available to everyone during our normal office hours if they prefer but we have to recognise that there is much that we can provide online, or in other ways, which is convenient for us, for our communities and which can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"We need to make more effective use of the technology available now and be ready for that which is coming, to modernise our services and improve our customers' access to them never forgetting the importance of the personal touch.  Customer expectations are changing and we have to ready to change with them," added Cllr Savage.

The strategy, which lays out how the Councils will manage the access to its services from now until 2015 contains a number of action points, each with value for money and ease of use for customers at its heart.