Wollongong City Council’s Customer Service Centre recently celebrated its second birthday with a wonderful gift – the centre has been listed as a finalist in the Government Contact Centre Excellence Awards for 2011.

Director Corporate and Community Services Greg Doyle said being awarded a finalist in the Awards in a national competition just two years after being established is great recognition on Council’s focus on customer service.

“The Customer Service Centre has about 30 friendly and enthusiastic team members who work diligently answering questions and providing detailed information to community members and customers,” Mr Doyle said.

“In the past two years the Customer Service team has responded to more than 327,000 phone calls and spent more than 887,000 minutes [that’s 2,111 working days] on the phone with City customers. In the Customer Service Centre on the ground Floor of the Administration building, the team has met with 67,000 people. A tremendous effort.”

The team, led by Denise Lazarus, has received wonderful feedback from many delighted customers, including one customer who wrote: “I had to sit down and write regarding your fabulous Customer Service.  Today I was phoning quite a few businesses, and have today found your crew were the tops.  No waiting, plus friendly happy staff. What a delight! “

A Council survey has also found that 87 per cent of people who had contacted Customer Service rated it the best, Very Satisfied.

Lyn Kofod, Manager Governance and Information said: “I am extremely proud of the achievements of our Customer Service team.  They provide our customers with professional, friendly, supportive, timely and consistent advice. They treat customers with the utmost respect and courtesy!  They are continually looking for ways to improve our service delivery to benefit our customers.”

Background

The Government Contact Centre Summit (GCC) in partnership with the Customer Contact
Management Association (CCMA) has announced 12 finalists (in 5 categories) for the 2011 Government Contact Centre Excellence Awards Finalists.

The awards ceremony will be held on 29 August, and recognise customer service champions of the highest level across local, state, and federal agencies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Council’s Customer Service can be contacted on (02) 4227 7111.