Issue 8 | January 2007
Bexley Council - “Customer First has supported us to be a top performing council”
Bexley Council’s business support team know their customers are happy. But how?
“Because enduring customer relationships develop,” explains Economic Development Officer, Chris Tomlins. “Particularly in the public sector you want people to feel they have had value for money, to use the service again and you want good quality referrals from existing customers and partners.” This is all happening thanks in part to the Council’s Business Investment and Retention Team (BIRT) achieving Customer First.
BIRT were already high-fliers, being a part of the Economic Development Unit at Bexley, which was one of only five councils to achieve Beacon Status for Fostering Business Growth in 2002-3. BIRT wanted to keep the momentum going and that’s where Customer First came in. Tim Walby, Principal Economic Development Officer and Team leader says, “We were already fairly focused and committed to continuous improvement. We needed to pull it all together and Customer First helped us to be consistent.”
Chris, who championed Customer First, described the assessment as “absolutely fantastic - we had an excellent assessor. She was very good at praising our good practice points and equally forthright in saying ‘you are not doing it quite right here’, helping us to change our thinking and showing us where and how to make the adjustment.”
BIRT achieved Customer First in September 2006, and this has improved their approach in several key areas, including, customer satisfaction, partnership working, helping the local community, managing change and becoming a top performing council.
To download the full case study click here
Photo: Keith Ramsay, (centre) Chief Executive of Customer First UK presenting the Bexley Team with their Customer First Certificate.
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