Customer experience
Improving Customer Service is a key priority for Disability and Carers Service – this section explains what we will do in the year ahead to achieve this.
We will treat our customers and their representatives with respect and deliver an accessible, accurate and efficient service. We will keep our customers informed and will listen to what they tell us and learn from it.
Disability and Carers Service Customer Promise
Our Customer Promise is the result of talking to disabled people, carers and customer representative groups and it helps us understand what really matters to our customers.
Customer feedback is a crucial factor in how we improve our business. It influences how we develop our staff, how we refine procedures and how we organise our work. It makes sure we focus on putting our customers at the heart of our business.
Importantly during 2006 we will be preparing for the new Disability Equality Duty which comes into force in December. Disability and Carers Service will be working to ensure that the way it runs its business promotes equality of opportunity for disabled people.
Improve accuracy of our work
We aim to:
- Achieve a financial accuracy rate of 98% on Carer’s Allowance payments;
- Achieve an accuracy rate of 90% on decisions on claims for Disability Living Allowance and 92% for Attendance Allowance;
- Provide more consistent and accurate decisions;
- Improve handling of disputed decisions; and
- Make our IT-supported guidance available to more of our decision makers.
“Thank you for your understanding; I’m sorry you were bothered with my claim. The right decision was made and I cannot fault your standard of service. My regards to everyone who dealt with my claim. Thank you very much for your kind and helpful service, I am very impressed.”
Customer quote
Improve customer accessibility to our services
We aim to:
- Ensure that for the period 1 April 2006 to 30 September 2006 at least 90% of calls to the DLA/AA Helpline, our national telephone service, are answered first time, and from 1 October 2006, ensure that at least 92% of calls are answered first time;
- Ensure that less than 1% of all calls attempted to the DLA/AA Helpline receive an engaged tone / automated message;
- Improve the Disability and Carers Service website;
- Increase customer access to, and awareness of, our online services;
- Research how our customers learn about and subsequently access our services; and
- Test new ways of working in our Carer’s Allowance Unit, including better and more extensive use of advanced telephony.
“Your office deserves a commendation. This e-mail reply within an hour of my sending for the application and the application itself arrived at my home the next morning!”
Customer quote
Treating customers and their representatives with respect and as individuals
We aim to:
- Publish our Disability and Carers Service Disability Equality Scheme, which will set out how we will implement the Disability Equality Duty to promote equality and the ways we will measure how well we are doing;
- Make more British Sign Language information available in videos and DVDs;
- Research and improve our ability to serve customers with specific needs; and
- Improve how we handle individual customer complaints.
“May I take this opportunity to say how kind and considerate I have found your department during the last 6 months. You have provided a very efficient and sympathetic service and I have been very impressed.”
Customer quote
Keeping customers and representatives informed
We aim to:
- Provide easier to understand explanations of our decisions and issue a bespoke letter of explanation with each decision;
- Improve our procedures for keeping customer representatives informed; and
- Clarify what information can be given to customer representatives and in what circumstances so that we can be more efficient.
“I cannot emphasise sufficiently how impressed I am with the promptness and efficiency of your service. The letters are clear and the whole process is done with virtually no delay.”
Customer quote
Listening to customers and learning from them
We aim to:
- Increase the percentage of customers satisfied with the service provided by Disability and Carers Service to 85%, an increase of 2% above the 2005 Customer Satisfaction Survey;
- Introduce a programme to monitor customer views of Disability and Carers Service performance during the year;
- Improve how we learn from complaints;
- Address any serious concerns which are identified through our complaints system;
- Act on the findings of the 2005 customer survey;
- Conduct the 2006 customer survey; and
- Deliver consistently high standards of customer service across the Disability and Carers Service.
“Thank you so much for helping me and for giving me the Attendance Allowance. I am so appreciative and can now look forward to staying in my own home.”
Customer quote
Delivering an efficient service
We aim to:
- Improve DLA/AA Helpline, specifically by i) handling more customer enquiries without the need to transfer calls and ii) reducing the need for customers to call back; and
- Clear new claims for Disability Living Allowance within an average of 39 working days, new claims for Attendance Allowance within an average of 19 days and Carer’s Allowance within an average of 15 working days.
“I would like to say your service is excellent and the time taken to deal with my claim was very quick indeed.”
Customer quote