Improving the customer service experience

Quick overview

We know that when you contact us, because you’ve got a question, you need to book something, or something’s gone wrong, you don’t want to spend valuable time finding out which council can help you. You also don't want to call one council only to be transferred to another.

To help, we’re working with Lichfield District Council to improve the way we work together, with the aim of creating joined-up customer services who can help you more quickly, without the need to signpost or transfer you.

We’re doing this by identifying the services you use the most and prioritising them - delivering joined up, collaborative services for the times when you most need them.

If successful we hope to roll this approach out to councils across Staffordshire.

Our vision

Long-term we want to make sure that when you call us, you’ll speak to a highly skilled and knowledgeable customer service advisor who will be able to help with your enquiry, regardless of which council you contact.

When you go online, you’ll have opportunities to self-serve (wherever possible) and where you need to call us, we'll be able to help you, regardless of which council you called.

Long-term we'll explore the possibility of a one-telephone-number approach.

About our 2023 pilots

Before we can deliver our long-term vision, we're piloting a more joined-up approach between Lichfield District Council and Staffordshire County Council across our waste and recycling services.

We'll also be piloting a more joined-up approach to other top services throughout the rest of this year, including:

• Environmental health.
• Disability facilities grant information, advice, and guidance.
• Highways and road closures.
• Concessionary travel and blue badges.
• Community safety and street scene.

As well as making sure our teams can both handle enquiries about these service areas, we'll be updating our websites with new content and videos to make sure customers can self-serve digitally and get what they need.  

We’ll also be asking you for your feedback on our newly aligned services, through a variety of methods including online surveys, where you’ll have the opportunity to feedback to us on how things are going.

Enabling early prevention, citizen centred (right first time), commerically minded, and excellent citizen experience.

 *Single front door operation model and long-term vision

If you would like to know more about the single front door approach, or if you have any questions about our new approach to customer services, please contact the team on ContactUs@staffordshire.gov.uk

We'll also be publishing more information to this page as our work on the pilots progresses.