Council’s customer focus recognised at Local Government Excellence Awards

Cessnock City Council’s commitment to providing outstanding customer service and improving the customer experience was recognised with two awards at the 2020 Local Government Excellence Awards.

---

Council came away a winner in the Service Delivery Initiative category for their recent ePlanning transformation.

This project was all about improving the applicant’s experience in lodging development applications and post consent certificates online via the NSW Planning Portal.

Cessnock City Council’s General Manager, Lotta Jackson said the benefits of this transformation have made planning easier, more accessible and reduced assessment times for the applicant.

“We were the first Council in NSW to achieve a direct link between our internal planning systems and the NSW Planning Portal which is a fantastic achievement and something our team should be very proud of,” said Lotta.

Council also received a Highly Commended in the category of Excellence in People and Culture for their Customer Relations Improvement Project.

The introduction of new technology in this project provided a renewed focus on the customer experience, demonstrated improvement in response time to customers, improved communication and knowledge exchange across Council.

“We remain committed to providing Customer Service excellence, meeting our communities needs and expectations by striving towards future innovation with the continued goal of positive customer engagement,” said Lotta.

“Our Customer Relations Team supported the community across several emergency events in 2019/20 and we will continue to improve on and deliver exceptional customer service to our community,” added Lotta.