Introduction
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I am pleased to be publishing the second summary of our customer satisfaction research results. This latest summary details the results of telephone interviews, conducted on our behalf by an independent research company, with a sample of our customers between May and October 2010.
The primary role of my Office is to investigate complaints of unfair treatment or poor service by public bodies or the NHS, and to put things right where we can. Of course, making judgments on the quality of services provided by others means that we ourselves have to strive to achieve the highest standards of customer service.
One of our strategic objectives is to deliver a high quality and accessible complaint handling service. We use the results of our customer satisfaction research to measure our success in achieving this objective, and to ascertain to what extent we fulfil the expectations our customers have of the service we provide.
I am pleased that the results of this latest research suggest that we are meeting our objective: the majority of our customers continue to rate our services favourably in most respects. Our customer satisfaction levels have increased since the publication of our first research summary in August 2010. This reflects the approachability of our staff and the high quality of their communications with our customers.
However, the research also shows that some of our customers continue to be critical about their experience and do not have confidence in our ability to handle their complaint appropriately. The nature of our work – we handle complaints independently – means that there will always be people who are unhappy with the outcome of their complaint. Nonetheless, we are committed to maintaining the highest quality of customer service, and to communicating the reasons for our final decisions which may disappoint, in a timely, efficient and accessible manner. We will continue to work to address our customers’ concerns and to increase their confidence in our ability to handle their complaints.
If you have recently made a complaint to us, or are thinking of bringing a complaint, I hope this research summary will provide a useful snapshot of the experiences of some of our recent customers. We are grateful to all those who have participated in the research: as a result of your feedback we are able to improve the service we offer to everyone.
Ann Abraham
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
