If the global pandemic has taught us anything, it's how quickly people can adapt to change. While the transition to work-from-home environments was a swift one for the region six weeks ago, Council's Customer Service team quickly adjusted to their home environments to ensure they could continue to meet the needs of the community, while adhering to Public Health Orders.
While the organisation prepares to open its face-to-face services on Wednesday, we reflect on the past five weeks and how our teams managed throughout the lockdown period.
Council's Coordinator of Customer Relations Jeff Hannant says the transition to work-from-home was relatively smooth thanks to the patience and understanding from community members.
"It's not only our staff members that had to adapt to changes, but community members as well."
"Our team experienced a significant shift with residents adapting to online transactions while Council was unable to offer face-to-face services. Residents who would normally come into the office to pay their bills were doing this online or over the phone," said Mr Hannant.
"We missed seeing the faces of our residents each day but it was great to still be able to cater to the community and answer everyone's calls and deliver on requests."
"Our priority is to deliver quality customer service and we took the lockdown period as an opportunity to identify greater efficiencies in our processes to enhance the customer experience," said Mr Hannant.
Council's Customer Service team will return to face-to-face services on Wednesday from 9.30am to 4pm in Armidale and 10am to 4pm in Guyra.
Online services continue to be available on the Self-Service section of Council's website.
