Customer Service Charter

‘Creating a better future with vibrant Communities and thriving business’

Waitomo District Council is committed to providing high quality services and delivering a high standard of customer service.

As a customer of Waitomo District Council, you will be treated fairly and considerately when accessing any of our services whether in person, by phone, in writing, by email or by internet enquiry.

Our Commitment

We are committed to:

• Being professional, honest and ethical at all times
• Using plain language in all of our communications
• Be friendly and accessible
• Provide a 24 hour enquiry service
• Listen to you with respect and endeavor to understand your needs
• Respond to enquiries promptly and efficiently
• Respond immediately to high priority incidents
• Be transparent and accountable
• Respect confidentiality
• Provide a quality service and work continually to improve our service
• Where necessary enforce rules that protect the safety of the community and environment
• Acknowledge our mistakes and where appropriate apologise for any inconveniences caused

Our Service Standards

We aim to:

• Deal with enquiries at the first point of customer contact, whenever possible 
• Respond to your telephone enquiry within one working day
• Where telephone enquiries are more complex we will either make an appointment to meet or arrange to contact you when the information is available
• Acknowledge, and where possible, respond to your correspondence by mail, email or via website within 5 working days
• See you punctually at the scheduled time if you have a pre-arranged appointment.  If there is to be a delay in seeing you, communicate the reason for any delay at an early time
• Attend to enquiries as soon as practicable if you do not have a pre-arranged appointment
• Provide feedback on the outcome of any Service Request in a timely manner 

Our Responsibilities

As a regulatory body, Council is required by Government to:

• administer various regulations and uphold the law; and
• safeguard the public interest.

These responsibilities may not always match your expectation or wishes.  Where there is conflict that cannot be resolved at staff or manager level, further avenues of appeal to external regulatory bodies may exist.  We will be happy to advise customers of these procedures.

As we work together you can help us by

• Treating our staff with respect
• Letting us know when things change such as your contact details
• Having information at hand when contacting us – i.e. application or rating details

We aim to keep improving our service and seek customers’ evaluation and feedback on our performance.  Please contact us if there are some aspects of our service you believe we have not done well, could do better or, for any reason were not satisfied with.  Your feedback is important to us.