CUSTOMER SERVICE STANDARDS
To bring you a wide range of high quality services West Lothian Council?s Economic Development Service works with a number of partners. These include Scottish Enterprise / Business Gateway, the Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust and JobcentrePlus. We aim to meet the following standards of service at all times: - Access to our services will be determined by clear criteria, which will be explained to you at the outset. The scope and limits of our services will be clearly explained;
- Each customer will be dealt with fairly and sensitively and without discrimination;
- Client confidentiality will be maintained at all times;
- Our office premises will be welcoming, well organised, clean and tidy;
Responding to Enquiries - Our reception staff will acknowledge all visitors and customers promptly and will welcome visitors verbally in a friendly and polite manner;
- All incoming telephone calls will be answered promptly and courteously within 3 rings;
- All messages will be answered and telephone calls will be returned by an appropriate member of staff within one hour, or, if staff are unavailable, within one working day of the original contact;
- E-mail enquiries will be answered within one working day of the original contact;
- We aim to reply to correspondence within 5 working days of receipt. If we need more time to prepare a response, we will contact you within this timescale to let you know when you will receive a full reply. This does not apply to circulars and commercial canvassing letters.
- Enquiries will be responded to within 48 hours or less;
- Your details will be taken on your first enquiry, which will be handled promptly and professionally in a friendly and helpful manner.
Advisory Services - Where appropriate, an appointment will be made available within 3 working days. We will make every effort to arrive on time for appointments. If unavoidably delayed, we will do our best to inform you of our expected time of arrival. If we have to cancel, we will tell you immediately and arrange an alternative appointment at a mutually convenient time;
- Staff will be appropriately qualified and trained, and exhibit good professional knowledge within their service area;
Accessibility - Our offices opening hours will be clearly displayed and published;
- Publicity information and other materials will use clear, simple language and will be written in plain English. Where language problems occur, we will arrange to provide information through relevant intermediaries or sources;
- Every effort will be made to meet the requirements of visitors with special needs; where our facilities are not wheelchair accessible we will offer one-to-one service convenient to the needs of anyone with access problems or disability.
Improving Our Services - We aim to look at new ways of delivering our services to best suit the needs of our customers, using new technology to best effect where appropriate.
Customer Feedback - We will regularly consult with our customers and measure their levels of satisfaction. We welcome customer comments and aim to achieve feedback response rates of at least 25% and average satisfaction levels of 85%.
Complaints Procedure - Our complaints procedure will be readily available. Complaints will be thoroughly investigated and answered within 5 working days of receipt. Where this is not possible, a holding response will be issued giving details of when the complaint will be answered in full. To view the council's corporate complaints procedure click here.
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