DIMIA Annual Report 2004-05
Performance against the Client Service Charter
REVIEW OF THE CLIENT SERVICE CHARTER
The department's Client Service Charter (Charter) and companion brochure Do you have a complaint were introduced in 1998. The Charter informs clients about the standard of service they can expect from our staff and advises clients how they can help our staff to serve them better. The Do you have a complaint brochure informs clients about the avenues they can use to comment on our performance or to make a complaint.
We reviewed the Charter in 2004 and developed a revised draft Charter in 2005. In addition, to support the Charter we developed a Client Service Strategy for Visa and Citizenship Services that outlines the ways in which improvements can be made to these services.
Performance against the charter service standards
The department continued to perform well against the Charter's service standards, with onshore offices and overseas posts exceeding the benchmark performance in nine of the 13 service standards measured.
We continued to improve performance against the delivery of services to a diverse range of clients through a variety of service improvement initiatives.
A National Appointment System (NAS) was successfully implemented in September 2004. This allows visa and citizenship clients to make an appointment to visit a department office for certain services. The appointments system gives clients more certainty about when they will be seen and enables us to improve timeliness standards. Clients can make appointments by telephoning our contact centres in Sydney and Melbourne. A total of 87 140 appointments were made between September 2004 and 30 June 2005. We propose to expand the appointments system in 2005-06 to increase the range of services offered by appointment.
 Answering a Call Centre enquiry. |
A Client Information Taskforce was established in March 2005 to review the consistency and clarity of information available to clients. Principal goals for the taskforce are:
- ensure clients' needs are understood and met in the preparation of information
- introduce plain English principles into all our written communication and maintain those principles as the departmental standard
- work closely with all areas of the department to develop norms and standards for the development and delivery of client information
- develop systems to maintain improvements.
In May 2005, the department implemented a staff identification policy that documents how staff should meet the Charter commitment to identify themselves to clients ensuring they provide a professional and accountable service. An important aspect of this policy is the introduction of name badges for staff working in all client contact situations.
In addition, the department has:
- expanded visa lodgement opportunities by wider use of the Internet and an expanded network of service delivery partners to receive applications
- undertaken continued user-testing on our website to guide improvements to the navigation structure and information content
- extended contact centre operating hours
- introduced a new telephony system to provide better support to our contact centres
- developed and delivered client contact training to equip staff with the communication and interpersonal skills they need to provide a quality service to clients.
Feedback handling review and complaints data
Clients can currently provide feedback to the department by using a tear-off portion of the Do you have a complaint brochure, by telephoning the 133 177 Client Service Feedback Line, or by contacting any office by letter, fax or email.
The total number of calls made to the Client Service Feedback Line 133 177 number reduced significantly in 2004-05 to 9376 compared to 12 432 in 2003-04. This reduction was due to more efficient call handling following centralisation of these calls through the Contact Centres. This is attributed to the ability of the Contact Centres to queue multiple calls. Previously, a Complaint Handling Officer (CHO) could only manage one call at a time, resulting in some clients having to make multiple contacts in order to speak to a CHO.
The majority of these calls were resolved by contact centre staff. A total of 1762 calls were referred to a CHO for resolution, which compares to 2105 calls referred in 2003-04. This reduction is consistent with the decline in the total number of calls made to the 133 177 number since 2003-04.
The level of compliments increased significantly in 2004-05 with 816 compliments recorded compared to 517 in 2003-04.
Our complaints handling arrangements were examined in the Client Service Charter review. Revised feedback handling arrangements are to be implemented in 2005-06.