Info In Herefordshire wins Charter Mark
Herefordshire's residents receive excellent customer services from the council's Info in Herefordshire and Info by Phone and as a result, they have been awarded a charter mark for the fifth year running.
Charter Mark is the UK national standard of customer service excellence for public sector organisations. To meet charter mark standards, the council had to submit a series of documents and receive an assessment visit in January.
Charter mark assessor, Pat Board, was very complimentary about all the Info in Hereford services during her visit to the Hereford Centre, Garrick House and Info by Phone at Plough Lane. After interviewing members of the public and council staff to check that the required standards were being met, she praised the team for working in partnership with others to provide co-ordinated services, using resources well and being positively involved in the community
In particular, she singled out the Bromyard Centre's role in providing a rest centre during the summer floods and the way Info by Phone handled calls about the floods and subsequent funding schemes.
Councillor June French, cabinet member for corporate, customer services and human resources, said: "I'm delighted to learn that the team have met the standard once again and offer them my heartiest congratulations.
"It is very important that residents are able to access local services and be able to talk to someone from the Info customer services team who is helpful and knowledgeable. All the employees working in our Info Shops and Info by Phone have received extensive training and are able to provide a wide range of information on all the council's services.
"The council has invested in a new Info centre for Hereford and refurbished others to bring them up to standard and make sure they are able to deal with the growing range of information customers require."
The council has Info Shops in Hereford, Bromyard, Kington, Leominster, Ledbury and Ross on Wye. In addition, information can be obtained by ringing Info by Phone on 01432 260500.
