Council services
Customer care standards
We have established a number of customer care standards which cover the various ways in which our customers interact with us. We welcome your feedback if we fail to achieve our standards or if you are happy with the level of our service.
Telephone calls
Recent surveys have indicated that nearly 90% of our customers prefer to contact us by telephone. This translates to around 3,500 telephone calls every day. We try to ensure that every caller has a positive experience, even if the phone call is just the first step towards resolution of the problem.
We aim to:
- Answer all telephone calls within 10 seconds (4 rings)
- Ensure every caller is treated courteously and effectively
Letters
We receive about 2,000 items of correspondence each week. Many of these can be quickly replied to but some require in-depth investigation and research:
We aim to:
- Answer all letters within 10 working days, however if the response will take longer we will send an acknowledgement within 5 working days indicating when a full response will be sent
- Respond to letters as quickly and flexibly as possible so we may telephone or email you in response if you have provided full contact details and this is acceptable
Emails
Our Borough has one of the highest levels of email usage in the country and this is an area of customer contact we welcome. Our email address is wokinghambc@wokingham.gov.uk and there are more specific email addresses for our services throughout this website - including the A to Z index available at the top of every page. You can also use our contact us form to send us an email.
We aim to:
- Acknowledge emails on the day of receipt or the next working day if the email is sent outside of office hours or at the weekend
- Provide a full response to any email within 10 working days
Visitors
We welcome visitors to our reception areas. We accept that difficult situations may occasionally cause inconvenience and frustration to customers. However we do expect that customers visiting us will behave in a reasonable manner and we will terminate interviews in situations when we are concerned about the welfare of our staff and other members of the public.
To save you time and trouble you may wish to make an appointment before us. This will ensure that you see the appropriate member of staff and will help us to resolve your problem as quickly as possible.
Children are always welcome at our reception areas. However we would remind parents and guardians of their responsibilities and the need to exercise care in a busy office environment.
We aim to:
- See visitors without an appointment within 10 minutes of their arrival at our reception points
- See customers with an appointment at the appointed time
- Provide a confidential meeting room for any sensitive issues
