Customer Service Charter
The City of Stirling is committed, through our corporate values, to support and enhance a community that our residents, businesses and visitors can be proud to be part of.
Our values
Approachable
Responsible
Transparent
Innovative.
Our commitment to you
To be a dynamic organisation that delivers effective services, maintains a strong customer focus and supports our diverse community.
During all interactions, we will:
- Provide a professional standard of customer experience by being respectful
- Be helpful, courteous and inclusive
- Be consistent, efficient and responsive
- Be open, honest and accountable
- Listen to and understand the importance of your enquiry
- Communicate effectively and keep you informed of progress
- Provide accurate, meaningful up-to-date information and advice
- Identify ourselves verbally or by wearing a name badge.
We are also committed to
- Ensuring information, resources and services are accessible and inclusive
- Ensuring relevant case notes of interactions with our customers are recorded to ensure we are accountable and transparent.
- Using customer feedback, suggestions and improvement data to improve our services
- Respecting and protecting the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information
- Ensuring our employees work together effectively to resolve your enquiry, avoiding referrals to other departments within the City
- Engaging our community and seeking feedback on projects, plans and proposals that affect them
- Providing explanations for our decisions and how community feedback influenced the decision.
How you can help
We appreciate your assistance by asking that you:
- Provide accurate information to enable us to assist you
- Allow us to ask questions where necessary
- Respect the rights of other customers
- Understand that some requests are outside of the City’s responsibilities
- Inform us of any changes to your contact details or residential address
- Treat our employees with courtesy and respect - our safety and well-being of our employees is our priority and our employees may end a conversation if they feel unsafe or where it involves abusive language or aggressive behaviour.
Our contact standards
By phone
Our Customer Contact Centre will aim to resolve enquiries immediately.
If this isn’t possible, you will be transferred to the relevant officer who will assist you. If the officer is unavailable at the time of your call, you will receive a return call by 5:00pm the next business day. The City’s callback promise applies to genuine customer enquiries only; unsolicited enquiries and businesses cold calling are exempt. Please note, direct phone numbers and email addresses of City officers are not available via the Customer Contact Centre.
If you experience difficulty speaking or hearing, assistance to contact the city is available via the National Relay Service 1800 555 660.
If you are making a request for a service that requires action, we will advise you of the expected time frame to action your request. You will be provided with a case number to quote should you need to re-contact us.
In person
We will greet you with warmth, respect, courtesy and understanding. We aim to resolve face-to-face enquiries at the initial point of contact. When this is not possible, we will phone or write to you with a response within seven business days.
General enquiries and feedback
For general enquiries, please use our Customer Enquiries and Feedback Form available on our website. We aim to respond to written and online enquiries within seven business days. If your enquiry cannot be resolved within this timeframe, we will keep you informed of progress. Alternatively, please contact us via webchat, by phone, or in person.
Our social media accounts are monitored between 8.30am – 5.00pm, Monday to Friday. Enquiries received outside these hours will be responded to on a first-come, first-served basis.
Your feedback helps us improve our services. You can submit a compliment, suggestion, or complaint via our website, webchat, phone, or by visiting us in person.
- Compliments and suggestions are valued and reviewed internally to help us improve
- Complaints are handled efficiently, fairly, and confidentially. We are committed to providing a clear explanation of any decisions made.
Dispute resolution for businesses
- The City of Stirling is committed to providing an open, transparent and easily accessible dispute resolution process for its business customers
- Disputes will be managed in a fair, objective, unbiased and timely manner. Business customers will be kept informed of progress, including any delays
- City employees responsible for dispute management will be empowered to make decisions in order to manage and resolve disputes promptly and effectively
- A business in dispute with the City will be informed if discretion exists in a policy or planning scheme provision, or if legislative processes govern the decision. A clear explanation of any policies relating to the dispute will be provided by the City to the business
- Businesses have the right to request mediation if a resolution is not achieved. Referral by the City to the Small Business Development Corporation Alternative Dispute Resolution Service or another agreed mediation service provider may be requested.
For more information, please refer to business support to learn how the City can assist businesses by supporting free and low-cost services.
More information and contact
For more information, please phone our Customer Contact Centre.
Social media guidelines and terms of use
The City wants everyone to feel safe and respected on our Social Media channels. Please ensure you follow the below page guidelines for the City's official Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages:
- Please keep comments on-topic. We do our best to answer queries we can here but may ask you to contact us via phone or email for some enquiries
- Please treat people with respect and consideration
- If someone/an organisation hasn’t given you their express permission to use their name, photos and audio/video content, please don’t
- Make sure that what you post is also factually correct, legal, isn’t defamatory; threatening, abusive, discriminatory, offensive or invades a person’s privacy or infringes copyright or other intellectual property rights
- Do not use swearwords or inappropriate language which may offend; this includes swearwords with asterisks or other symbols replacing some letters
- You may not post any advertising, spam, selling and links to external sites. This includes posts used to direct traffic to other sites, blogs or Facebook pages
- Please do not post personal information including account numbers, addresses or other details
- You should only post the same message once
- Lastly: If you do come across a comment on our page that you consider inappropriate, Facebook allows you to report it directly either as 'mark as spam' or 'report as abuse'. All material posted on the page must comply with Facebook’s Terms of Use, LinkedIn's Professional Community Standards or Instagram's Terms of Use.
The City reserves the right to remove comments. Please note that offenders may be reported and blocked from participating on the page. The City of Stirling is not responsible or liable for any content posted or uploaded to the City's official Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages by a user or any content on third party sites.
The City of Stirling is committed to celebrating our diverse population and being respectful of all cultures to create a community where all people feel welcome. As we welcome discussion and value diverse perspectives, we appreciate your support about the importance to keep the conversation respectful.
