Customer service is a hit at Victoria Hall

Photo by Arlington Research. Free Use Domain. Unsplash

By Cecilia Nasmith

Three members of the town's Customer Service Team, who recently celebrated the first year of the implementation of the Customer Service Strategy and the installation of the customer service desk in the Victoria Hall lobby, addressed Cobourg council Wednesday to report on the initiative.

Every interaction is documented, and they are able to track their successes.

For phone calls, their goal was to resolve problems at point of contact 70% of the time and to return messages within one business day 95% of the time.

Except where a caller asks for a specific person of department, they resolved problems at point of contact 87% of the time and returned calls within one business day 100% of the time.

The same goal went for e-mails. In the end, they could resolve problems at point of contact 82% of the time and return correspondence within one business day 93% of the time.

As much as this service is appreciated by members of the public, it also benefits town staff through the number of calls and emails diverted.

They implemented three strategies over the past year.

Staff contact information has been removed from the municipal website in order to encourage callers to deal with the Customer Service Team.

Callers can now press 0 on the phone menu to reach them, and it's the first option offered.

And they are building a resource database with information provided by the different departments to be able to answer most frequently asked questions.

Departmental collaborations have enabled them to answer questions about tree pollen (thanks to Environmental Services), parking (Municipal Bylaw Enforcement), snow clearing (Roads), Transit (purchasing passes) and the Concert Hall (ticket sales and show information).

A survey is planned for the Engage Cobourg website where they can see where they are succeeding and where improvements might be made.

Chief Administrative Officer Tracey Vaughan said this initiative “has grown to be something that all of our departments appreciate and value. We are really grateful to all our colleagues and to the leadership to allow this to get to where it is.”