Customer Experience (CX) Plan

The City of Whittlesea is located in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, about 20 kilometres from the Melbourne Central Business District.

It is one of Australia’s largest and fastest growing municipalities, covering a land area of 489 square kilometres. We are one of the most multicultural municipalities in Victoria, with almost half of our residents speaking another language other than English at home.

Our customers include:

• Residents of all ages who live in our municipality
• Sporting clubs and community organisations
• Individuals who work in the City of Whittlesea
• Tourists and visitors to our municipality
• Elected Councillors and Members of Parliament

Our community:

• 229,396 population
• 41.8% of our residents were born overseas
• Median age is 35 years
• 49.8% of our residents speak a language other than English

The City of Whittlesea will ensure our customers have a positive experience with us at every interaction and offer easy and positive ways for our customers to do business with us.

We will improve customer service through investing in technology, systems and Council staff.

• Customers living within our municipality are younger than the average age across Melbourne, with residents being an average of 35 years old
• Council is aware of the importance digital solutions have for our customers and are therefore starting our own digital transformation journey, with the aim of being easy to do business with and provide an excellent customer experience at every interaction.
• The lack of automation and omni-channel options currently offered by Council’s customer service team is not fit for purpose for the organisation’s primary customer base. To guide our CX Plan, we will use both quantitative and qualitative insights, to establish a baseline and align to the wants and needs of our customers.

“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it.” – Peter Drucker

Feedback from our customers has informed our early prioritisation work

• Implement a customer feedback loop to inform customers on action and resolution to their enquiries
• Seek feedback from customers on their satisfaction with how their matter was resolved
• Embed customer standards to ensure consistency, accuracy and a quality of service is provided every time
• Invest in people and technology to support customers engaging with Council via a channel of their choice, at a location and time convenient to them

We have heard customer feedback and are committed to taking action in improving the customer experience to ensure our community receives a first class experience each time they engage with our systems, team members and information material.

Every time a customer interacts with us, we are committed to taking this as an opportunity for continuous improvement. We want to know what went well and how we can make it excellent next time, understanding each experience will help shape future interactions.

We will:

• Put customers first in prioritisation, decision making and delivery
• Aim to resolve matters at the first customer interaction with us
• Proactively update customers on the progress of their matters
• Ensure consistency in the way we resolve customer matters
• Leverage our Customer First Principles to implement a customer feedback loop
• Utilise qualitative and quantitative insights to inform how we invest and leverage digital solutions and technologies
• Be easy for our customers to do business with

The City of Whittlesea places the customer at the centre of all we do by following our four guiding Customer First Principles.

These principles will help guide our efforts to continuously improve the customer experience with an acknowledgement that all areas of Council have a responsibility to provide a great customer experience.

We will work towards a plan of actions that identify and develop opportunities to improve the delivery of services and remove barriers for our customers to engage with us.

The CX Plan, coupled with our Customer First principles will guide our transformation journey and see City of Whittlesea become an industry leader in the design and delivery of exceptional customer experiences.

The CX Plan has been adopted by Council to demonstrate the value we place on our community and commitment to becoming an industry leader in delivering an exceptional customer experience at every opportunity.

In establishing CX targets and reporting on our progress each month through the CX health card, we aim to be transparent with our community on how we are listening and taking action.

Our two primary customer experience metrics will focus on customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) and customer effort. These two metrics have been selected based on qualitative and quantitative feedback from our customers, who have expressed their low satisfaction in how we have previously provided customer service and the high amount of effort required from the customer to have their matter resolved.

The CSAT and customer effort scores will have sub-metrics that sit underneath each of them, that we as an organisation are committed to improving through delivering on our goals and in turn achieving our vision that, we will ensure our customers have a positive experience with us at every interaction and offer effortless and positive ways for our customers to do business with us.

The CX Plan, coupled with our Customer First principles will guide our transformation journey and see City of Whittlesea become an industry leader in the design and delivery of exceptional customer experiences.

To achieve this objective, we have adopted five goals to ensure every interaction is effortless and positive for the customer.

Transparency

We will be transparent on our performance and leverage the insights from a CX Health Card to evolve our services and meet customer expectations

Choice

Provide solutions that enable customers to engage with us through channels, times and locations that are most convenient to them

Insight

We will keep customers informed on the progress of their matters

Completion

If we cannot resolve customer matters at first contact, we will aim to action it as quickly as possible

Improvement

Implement a customer feedback loop to deliver continuous improvements that exceed customer expectations

Transparency

We will be transparent on our performance and leverage the insights from a CX Health Card to evolve our services and meet customer expectations

CX Initiatives:

• Establish, baseline and publish our customer experience health card on our website each month.
• We aim to be transparent about our performance and track improvements in our aim to provide customers with an exceptional experience.

Choice

Provide solutions that enable customers to engage with us through channels, times and locations that are most convenient to them

CX Initiative:

• We will use feedback to guide where we invest in digital solutions, teams and processes to ensure customers are able to engage with us through a channel, time and location convenient to them.

Insight

We will keep customers informed on the progress of their matters

CX Initiatives:

• Establish, baseline and publish our customer experience health card on our website each month.
• We aim to be transparent about our performance and track improvements in our aim to provide customers with an exceptional experience.

Completion

If we cannot resolve customer matters at first contact, we will aim to action it as quickly as possible

CX Initiative:

• Customer matters are important to us, as an organisation, we aim to resolve enquiries at the first point of contacting us. For more complex matters which require a subject matter expert or action to be taken at a specific location, we will provide customers with an anticipated resolution timeframe and aim to exceed the timeframe to resolve it.

Improvement

Implement a customer feedback loop to deliver continuous improvements that exceed customer expectations

CX Initiative:

• Adopting and implementing a customer feedback loop will enable Council to prioritise and deliver improvements across the end-to-end customer experience and will ensure alignment to the evolving needs and expectations of our customers.

We are committed to being transparent and will keep our customer updated on the progress and outcomes of the CX Plan.

To ensure the CX Plan continues to align to the evolving and changing expectations of our customers it will be a living document and will continue to adapt and deliver on our commitment to provide an exceptional customer experience at every opportunity.

The goals outlined in the CX Plan will be under pinned by a both quick win and long-term strategic initiatives that will ensure the successful achievement of our vision and allow Council to monitor and track our progress.

The progress of our goals will be shared on the CX Health Card on our website in early 2023 and will be updated monthly to ensure transparency with our customers.