Mystery Customers

Why are we doing this?

Local authorities provide a range of customer services, but unlike with private sector suppliers, tenants and leaseholders are not normally in the position of being able to choose an alternative provider. However, poor levels of service can still damage customer satisfaction, and anyone who has had a bad experience will often tell others about it, thereby spreading negative perceptions. We would like to use this initiative to engage with you, monitor satisfaction and demonstrate how engagement can make a difference in practise.

As a proactive Council, we want to know what it is like to be a customer of our services, to gain insight into what you expect and the level of service that you receive. Our Mystery Customers programme will measure our services with the aim of improving satisfaction and your overall experience by continually and consistently capturing your feedback.

It is vitally important that our services are easily accessed by our tenants and leaseholders. We need to make sure we are responding to queries promptly and providing the right information. You will play a vital role in ensuring that we are doing just that.

How does it work?

Each time you interact with Dacorum Borough Council or use one of our services, you will complete the questionnaire below to record how we did. For example, you could let us know how long it took us to answer the call or respond and how the request was dealt with. We can implement any suggestions made to ensure our services operate more effectively. Each completed questionnaire will automatically enter you into our quarterly prize draw.

Your Mystery Customers feedback will be used to recommend where improvements can be made, as we are constantly striving to improve the services that we deliver to our customers. Each time a questionnaire is completed, we will collate the findings and feedback any issues or compliments to the relevant service managers.

Mystery Customers is different from our satisfaction surveys in that it explores your experience at a snapshot in time (rather than asking for your views retrospectively) and records specific details of that particular experience. As such, it can be a very powerful tool to highlight clear action points for improving our services.

What is Mystery Customers?

  • A method for exploring your experiences when reporting issues or interacting with Dacorum Borough Council
  • Your view at a snapshot in time
  • Carried out in a variety of ways (can be done face-to-face, by telephone, by letter, by email, by surfing the web, by contacting us via social media)
  • A way of identifying strengths and weaknesses in dealing with customers
  • A method of measuring performance against set service standards
  • A useful aid for identifying training needs
  • A chance for you to provide open, honest, objective and constructive feedback

What is in it for you?

  • Each completed questionnaire will automatically enter you into our quarterly prize draw.
  • Opportunities to attend free training sessions and courses
  • Mystery Customer exercises can be undertaken at a time that is convenient for you and should not take long
  • Quarterly newsletter sharing your findings, spotlighting your good work, announcing prize draw winners and informing you about any improvements we have made
  • Opportunities to attend focus groups, open days, conferences & other events

What difference will this make?

  • Improvements in the way queries are handled
  • Changes to the information shown on the website and highlighting any information gaps
  • Improvements in the way that information is communicated
  • Recommendations being adopted in our policies and procedures
  • Improved accessibility on different devices
  • Additional training may be provided to staff

Register

Why are we doing this?

Local authorities provide a range of customer services, but unlike with private sector suppliers, tenants and leaseholders are not normally in the position of being able to choose an alternative provider. However, poor levels of service can still damage customer satisfaction, and anyone who has had a bad experience will often tell others about it, thereby spreading negative perceptions. We would like to use this initiative to engage with you, monitor satisfaction and demonstrate how engagement can make a difference in practise.

As a proactive Council, we want to know what it is like to be a customer of our services, to gain insight into what you expect and the level of service that you receive. Our Mystery Customers programme will measure our services with the aim of improving satisfaction and your overall experience by continually and consistently capturing your feedback.

It is vitally important that our services are easily accessed by our tenants and leaseholders. We need to make sure we are responding to queries promptly and providing the right information. You will play a vital role in ensuring that we are doing just that.

How does it work?

Each time you interact with Dacorum Borough Council or use one of our services, you will complete the questionnaire below to record how we did. For example, you could let us know how long it took us to answer the call or respond and how the request was dealt with. We can implement any suggestions made to ensure our services operate more effectively. Each completed questionnaire will automatically enter you into our quarterly prize draw.

Your Mystery Customers feedback will be used to recommend where improvements can be made, as we are constantly striving to improve the services that we deliver to our customers. Each time a questionnaire is completed, we will collate the findings and feedback any issues or compliments to the relevant service managers.

Mystery Customers is different from our satisfaction surveys in that it explores your experience at a snapshot in time (rather than asking for your views retrospectively) and records specific details of that particular experience. As such, it can be a very powerful tool to highlight clear action points for improving our services.

What is Mystery Customers?

  • A method for exploring your experiences when reporting issues or interacting with Dacorum Borough Council
  • Your view at a snapshot in time
  • Carried out in a variety of ways (can be done face-to-face, by telephone, by letter, by email, by surfing the web, by contacting us via social media)
  • A way of identifying strengths and weaknesses in dealing with customers
  • A method of measuring performance against set service standards
  • A useful aid for identifying training needs
  • A chance for you to provide open, honest, objective and constructive feedback

What is in it for you?

  • Each completed questionnaire will automatically enter you into our quarterly prize draw.
  • Opportunities to attend free training sessions and courses
  • Mystery Customer exercises can be undertaken at a time that is convenient for you and should not take long
  • Quarterly newsletter sharing your findings, spotlighting your good work, announcing prize draw winners and informing you about any improvements we have made
  • Opportunities to attend focus groups, open days, conferences & other events

What difference will this make?

  • Improvements in the way queries are handled
  • Changes to the information shown on the website and highlighting any information gaps
  • Improvements in the way that information is communicated
  • Recommendations being adopted in our policies and procedures
  • Improved accessibility on different devices
  • Additional training may be provided to staff

Register

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    Mystery Customers Newsletter 2

    Hello,

    I hope you are well and having a good week so far.

    We are very happy to announce that over 100 of you have already signed up to Mystery Customers, so thank you to everyone who has registered. Your feedback has been very insightful and most of it has been positive, so thank you for letting us know what works so that we can continue doing those things. We have also heard your suggestions for improvement, so we will actively work on those areas to make the experience better for you when using our services. Your participation and feedback is helping us to improve, so we are very grateful for your support!

    Here is the feedback provided between the 1st of July and the 30th of September:Prize draw winner:

    This is the second time that we have run our prize draw that takes place every three months. We would like to congratulate Keith who is the winner of our second prize draw, and we will contact you directly to arrange your prize. We have included more information about how you can enter the prize draw at the end of this newsletter.

    Spotlight on Building Safety:

    Thanks to feedback from our Mystery Customers, we have been able to identify and address key repairs to enhance Building Safety over the past few months. We are pleased to say that the reported issues have now been resolved, and we want to thank everyone who helped bring these to our attention.

    Your input is very important as it helps to keep our buildings safe. If you spot anything that needs repairing, whether in your home or communal areas, please report it as soon as possible. Don’t forget, by completing the Mystery Customers questionnaire, you’ll also be entered into our quarterly prize draw!

    Your reports make a real difference, so thank you again for helping us improve Building Safety for everyone!

    Our Next Steps:

    We’re happy to hear that most of your feedback so far has been positive, and we are committed to continuing doing the things that you have told us are working well. Your insights are key to helping us maintain and improve our services.

    Thanks to your feedback, we have identified a few areas for improvement, which we have added to our improvement plan:

    • Ensure staff always introduce themselves with their name and job title at the start of each call.
    • Explore the possibility of allowing you to update your email address through MyDacorum.
    • Add relevant contact details to the web pages that you visited.
    • Investigate delays into communal repairs.

    Dacorum Borough Council is overseeing the enhancements to the website and MyDacorum, whilst Cardo is leading the improvements to the repairs service. We will be collaborating closely with them to ensure upgrades are successfully delivered.

    We will keep you updated on the progress that we make toward these improvements. You will receive an update on these actions in the next newsletter. Thank you again for helping us to serve you better!

    Training:

    We are currently working with TPAS, experts in tenant engagement. They offer a Mystery Shopping training session, and we'd like to organise one for anyone interested. If you’d like to join, please complete the poll on the Mystery Customers platform. If we get enough interest, we will arrange a session.

    Focus Group:

    For those who want to offer more detailed feedback, we would be happy to invite you to join a focus group. This is a great opportunity to share your thoughts and directly shape our improvement efforts. Focus groups explore a specific theme, and this could be repairs, the website, MyDacorum or another service that we provide. If you would be interested in this, let us know through the feedback section on the Mystery Customers platform, and tell us what theme you would be interested in discussing.

    Tips for completing the Mystery Customers Questionnaire:

    Did you know that every time you use our services, you have a chance to win a prize? You can complete the Mystery Customers questionnaire anytime you interact with Dacorum Borough Council or use one of our services. Whether it's through a phone call, website visit, face-to-face meeting, post, social media, or email, every interaction counts.

    The Mystery Customers questionnaire can be completed as many times as you like, and each completed questionnaire earns you another entry into our prize draw. Here are some of the reasons that you may need to contact us, interact with us or use one of our services:

    • Anti-social behaviour & Community Safety
    • Building Safety
    • Cleaning
    • Complaints
    • Dacorum Online Training
    • Homelessness Prevention
    • Housing Applications
    • Leaseholder Services
    • Planned Works & Adaptations
    • Rent
    • Repairs
    • Supported Housing
    • Temporary Accommodation
    • Tenancy Sustainment & Welfare
    • Using MyDacorum
    • Visiting a Housing event (e.g. Committees, Focus Groups, Forums, Open Days, Scrutiny Boot Camps)
    • Your Tenancy

    If you do interact with us, contact us or use one of our services, then please complete the Mystery Customers questionnaire so we can enter you into the prize draw. Your feedback is crucial to improving our services, and it is a simple way to help us understand what we are doing right, and where we can do better.

    You can find more information, key dates, FAQs and the questionnaire on our Mystery Customers platform. You can also use the platform to ask questions, give feedback and share ideas.

    Thank you for all of your feedback so far and being one of our valued Mystery Customers.

    Kind Regards,

    Dacorum Borough Council

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    Mystery Customers Newsletter 1

    Hello,

    I hope you are well and having a good week so far.

    We recently started our new initiative called Mystery Customers and we would like to thank you for signing up. So far, all of the feedback that we have received is positive, so thank you for letting us know what works so that we can continue doing those things. Your participation and feedback has been incredibly valuable to us.

    Here is the feedback that we have received so far:

    • The layout of the website is attractive and professional.
    • The information on the website is displayed clearly, correctly and all of the links were working.
    • The information on the website is jargon-free, written in Plain English and easy to understand.
    • The website is user-friendly, easy to use and navigate.
    • Contact details were easy to find on the website, in case further help is needed.
    • It is easy to find a full and comprehensive answer to a query using the website.
    • Information can be found quickly and easily on the website.
    • There have been no problems using the website, and it is easy to report issues.

    Prize draw winner:

    Each time you complete the Mystery Customers questionnaire, you will automatically be entered into our prize draw that takes place every three months. We would like to congratulate Darren who is the winner of our first prize draw, and we will contact you directly to arrange your prize.

    Spotlight on Rubbish Clearance:

    So far through the Mystery Customers scheme, we have been able to identify areas where there are problems with rubbish being dumped, litter and fly-tipping in communal areas. These issues that have been reported by our Mystery Customers should now be resolved, so thank you to those of you who have brought this to our attention. Your reports have helped us take swift action, so a big thank you to everyone who contributed!

    Next Steps:

    As all of the feedback that we have received so far has been positive, there is nothing for us to add to the action plan on this occasion. We will make sure that we continue to do the things that you have told us work well. Your insights are crucial in helping us maintain and improve our services.

    Looking ahead, we may host focus groups for those interested in providing more detailed feedback in person. This will be a great opportunity to dive deeper into your thoughts and ideas, directly influencing our action plan and helping us to serve you better.

    Additionally, we also work with TPAS, who are experts in tenant engagement. They offer a Mystery Shopping training session, and we are considering organising a session for anyone who is keen to participate.

    Stay tuned for more details, and thank you for being an essential part of our community!

    Tips for completing the Mystery Customers Questionnaire:

    Remember, you can complete the Mystery Customers questionnaire anytime you interact with Dacorum Borough Council or use one of our services. Whether it's through a phone call, website visit, face-to-face meeting, post, social media, or email, every interaction counts.

    The Mystery Customers questionnaire can be completed as many times as you like, and each completed questionnaire earns you another entry into our prize draw. Here are some of the reasons that you may need to contact us, interact with us or use one of our services:

    • Anti-social behaviour & Community Safety
    • Building Safety
    • Cleaning
    • Complaints
    • Dacorum Online Training
    • Homelessness Prevention
    • Housing Applications
    • Leaseholder Services
    • Planned Works & Adaptations
    • Rent
    • Repairs
    • Supported Housing
    • Temporary Accommodation
    • Tenancy Sustainment & Welfare
    • Visiting a Housing event (e.g. Committees, Focus Groups, Forums, Open Days, Scrutiny Boot Camps)
    • Your Tenancy

    If you do interact with us, contact us or use one of our services, then please complete the Mystery Customers questionnaire so we can enter you into the prize draw. Your feedback is important to us, and your opinion matters.

    You can find more information and the questionnaire on our Mystery Customers platform. You can also use the platform to ask questions, give feedback and share ideas.

    Thank you for all of your feedback so far and becoming one of our Mystery Customers.

    Kind Regards,

    Dacorum Borough Council

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Page last updated: 23 Oct 2024, 10:45 AM