Professional Documents
Culture Documents
LINZ Customer Service Strategy
LINZ Customer Service Strategy
LINZ Customer Service Strategy
Service
Strategy
May 2004
Contents
Contents ........................................................................................................................2
Introduction..................................................................................................................3
Purpose.......................................................................................................................3
Outcomes ...................................................................................................................3
Challenges..................................................................................................................3
LINZ Customer Environment ....................................................................................5
Appendix A: Glossary................................................................................................17
Introduction
By following the Customer Service Strategy, LINZ will make clear to customers how
they access and use LINZ data, and how they transact business with LINZ. LINZ’s
customer value proposition is: ‘Here is authoritative land information— supported by
clear standards, open channels of communication and ready access.’
Purpose
The customer service strategy provides a high level framework that supports LINZ’s
vision to be “the Government’s Centre of Land Information and Expertise’; and the
Government’s vision for New Zealand to ‘become a world leader in e-government’.
Outcomes
LINZ is seeking the following outcomes from this strategy:
• An outcome focus that promotes self-regulation and the public interest with the
least intervention
1
• LINZ’s primary customers exclusively use electronic channels
• Customers’ needs are understood and responses designed to meet those needs
• An environment that supports easy, cost-effective access to, and use of,
authoritative land information
• Customer service practices that are consistent with government requirements and
LINZ’s mandate
• An integrated approach to providing customer service throughout LINZ
• An enabling culture that facilitates, encourages and rewards customer service
• A common framework from which to develop specific customer service initiatives
• Recognition that there is a shifting customer base and requirements as LINZ
becomes e-LINZ
• Strong, self-sufficient professional sector groups
Challenges
The strategy addresses a range of customer service challenges, including:
• moving LINZ primary customers to exclusive use of electronic channels
• developing a regulatory environment where professional groups have a greater
degree of self-regulation in maintaining professional standards
1
Refer to page 5.
3
• making quality the key to success, internally and externally
• ensuring service management policies and processes are consistently applied
• finding ways to work with other government agencies to deliver shared services
• listening to customers, anticipating their needs and responding appropriately
• analysing customer interactions and trends, and prioritising actions
• maintaining regular communication with customers
• delivering seamless, whole of LINZ service for customers
• defining measures and benchmarks to demonstrate service improvements
• putting responsibilities back onto customers for meeting LINZ’s standards
4
LINZ Customer Environment
The LINZ customer environment comprises a number of customer groups for which
LINZ has different mandated responsibilities and service levels.
LINZ has close customer service relationships with a number of stakeholder groups,
including:
• Core Government Agencies
• Associated Professional Groups, such as accredited providers, New Zealand
Institute of Surveyors, New Zealand Law Society, New Zealand Property Institute
5
Principles for LINZ Customer Service
The principles are the basis by which LINZ will measure how well it implements its
customer service strategy. LINZ aims to keep the following customer promises:
1. You can trust our data and standards—they are authoritative.
2. We make cost-effective improvements that incorporate feedback from
customers.
3. We do our best to help you get our data, but you need to know what you want.
4. If we don’t provide the service you need, we’ll point you in the right direction.
5. We take a proactive approach to help you avoid problems.
Timeliness Customers know what to expect from LINZ in terms of standards for
timeliness.
Access Customers can access LINZ services, with the internet becoming the
primary channel.
Security Customers can have confidence that LINZ respects and protects the
integrity, confidentiality and privacy of information.
Communication Customers are aware of and understand LINZ’s mandate, and the
services LINZ does and does not provide.
Quality LINZ has a continuous improvement culture for customer service and
actively seeks ways to improve service and/or reduce cost.
Needs LINZ actively listens to its customers and considers their current and
future needs in its information services.
Feedback LINZ regularly seeks formal and informal feedback from customers.
Involvement LINZ involves its customers and other stakeholders in planning and
preparing for future changes that affect them.
Cost LINZ provides its products and services at least long-term cost to the
Crown and customers, while fulfilling the standards of financial probity,
transparency and risk expected of public sector agencies.
6
Priority LINZ customer service priorities reflect its higher level of responsibility
to those customers required to deal with it, balancing the differing needs
of all customers to achieve maximum overall satisfaction at least cost.
Compliance LINZ complies with all acts and regulations that govern it.
7
Goals and Strategies
This goal implements the accuracy, timeliness, security and change principles.
Help customers to work LINZ accepts its obligation to help customers make effective
smarter use of the products it makes available. LINZ should help its
customers to work measurably smarter:
Publish regulatory and LINZ should produce standards that are clear, outcome focused
technical standards and and enable efficient and effective receipt, management, supply
guidelines and use of information. LINZ should:
Ensure customers are LINZ should help its customers to understand the impact of
aware of change and its LINZ changes on their businesses. LINZ should:
consequences
• communicate proposed timetables and verify that customers
have understood what will be happening
• provide skills and resources to maintain the defined service
levels to customers following major changes
• engage key stakeholder groups in communicating the
change message
• repeat the message through a variety of media, such as
newsletters, industry briefings, web site
8
Help customers to help LINZ should encourage customers to become increasingly self-
themselves sufficient and self-reliant. LINZ should:
9
Goal 2. Connected customers
Customers have appropriate access to all LINZ information services.
This goal implements the access, needs, feedback and involvement principles.
Respond to customer LINZ should make it easier for customers to make their needs
needs and feedback known and take customer priorities into account when
determining its own priorities. LINZ should:
Maintain one source for LINZ should record all information about and interactions with
information about customers in a central repository. This repository is:
customers
• pervasive, so that everyone dealing with the customer sees
and tells a consistent story
• authoritative, so that everything about the customer
relationship is recorded
• shared, so that there are no personal databases where access
depends on an individual staff member or group
• open, so that customers can see and update their own
information or raise service requests, via the web
10
Consolidate the support LINZ should separate transaction processing work from
service. customer-facing work. LINZ should:
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Goal 3. Committed primary customers
Primary customers are committed to using the e-channel.
This goal complements the “e-Delivery Excellence” strategic goal in the LINZ
Statement of Intent 2004/05, “LINZ’s primary customers exclusively use electronic
channels”.
Align service quality LINZ should involve selected customers and stakeholder
standards with customer groups in setting service quality standards and priorities. LINZ
expectations should:
Deliver to service quality Sustainable service quality results from replicable processes,
standards independent of the individuals who perform them. LINZ should
adopt a culture of process-based customer service:
Listen to the voice of the LINZ should pass complaints or questions directly to the point
customer they can be resolved—not pass the customer from person to
person. LINZ should listen on 4 communication channels:
Align incentives with LINZ should ensure front line staff have the knowledge and
desired service outcomes power to make good and timely decisions in serving customers.
LINZ should:
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• incorporate customer service measures in the performance
management system
• look for customer service competencies when recruiting
and provide suitable supplementary training
• establish a personal development programme to increase,
update and maintain desired competencies in staff
• implement processes to promote and reward knowledge
sharing
• ensure all policies and procedures are consistent with
customer services best practices, such as NZ business
excellence foundation
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Goal 4. Mandate fulfilled
Customers and other stakeholders consider that LINZ data meets the specified
standards for that service or product.
This goal implements the communication, cost and compliance principles, and
underpins each of the other customer service principles.
Benchmark against other LINZ should benchmark its customer service performance
agencies against that of comparable agencies in New Zealand and
overseas. Where possible, the benchmarks will consider factors
such as:
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value-added products
• work with third party providers to enable delivery to non-
core customers
• constantly reevaluate services, and where it decides not to
continue a service, develop exit strategies or hand-over
strategies
15
Achieving this Strategy
All LINZ people involved in customer service need to think about, debate and adopt a
common approach to three key messages:
• Listen to the customer’s voice; ensure our systems and processes let us hear
and respond; separate back office processing from front office service.
• Take a holistic approach to customer service; integrate across our web, phone,
print and face-to-face channels; align the performance management system.
• The e-Government and virtual agency strategies mean we have to change; they
present an opportunity to re-evaluate everything we do and how we do it.
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Appendix A: Glossary
Wholesale The business of selling goods to retailers in larger quantities than they
are sold to final consumers, but in smaller quantities than they are
purchased from manufacturers.
Core information Authoritative information collected and held by LINZ for the Crown’s
interest in land information, products and services.
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