{"id":48585,"date":"2022-02-01T10:23:35","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T23:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bellarinetimes\/?p=48585"},"modified":"2022-02-01T10:23:35","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T23:23:35","slug":"city-customer-service-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bellarinetimes\/news\/city-customer-service-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"City makes changes to  Customer Service Centres"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THE City of Greater Geelong is permanently closing some of its Customer Service Centres as it responds to what it describes as &#8220;trends hastened by COVID-19 restrictions over the past two years&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Customers are encouraged to pay bills and get access to general information, simple forms and transactions via the city&#8217;s website and call centre.<\/p>\n<p>Customer Service Centres in Corio, Drysdale and central Geelong will be retained to provide in-person assistance for residents with more complex, personal inquiries.<\/p>\n<p>The Brougham Street Customer Service Centre will be replaced by the purpose-built facility in Wurriki Nyal when it opens in mid-2022.<\/p>\n<p>Four centres \u2013 Ocean Grove, Waurn Ponds, Belmont and Geelong West \u2013 that have been closed since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 will not reopen.<\/p>\n<p>The Geelong Regional Library Corporation will be taking over the vacated spaces for a host of community activities.<\/p>\n<p>Geelong deputy mayor Trent Sullivan said the needs of customers and how they chose to interact with the city had been progressively changing in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition to online and phone services, and seen permanent habits formed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is incumbent on us to adapt and continually improve our customer service to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before the pandemic, 54 per cent of visitors to a Customer Service Centre were there only to pay a bill.<\/p>\n<p>Due to the forced closure of these centres, these customers have had to find other ways to transact in the past 18 months.<\/p>\n<p>Cr Anthony Aitken, chair of the finance portfolio, said the changes were part of a wider plan to provide better experiences for customers in five ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reducing service costs by providing customers with cost-efficient channels<\/li>\n<li>Reducing the need for visits through improved online and telephone options<\/li>\n<li>Shifting simple inquiries online and\/or to the phone<\/li>\n<li>Reducing call volumes through improved first contact resolution, and<\/li>\n<li>Reducing physical infrastructure costs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe overall plan is aimed at directing our resources to the areas of greatest need,\u201d Cr Aitken said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are focused on continually improving our online and telephone service, to reduce the need for visits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe recognise that more personal and complex requests will continue to require in-person service and we will have specialist staff on hand to assist those customers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE City of Greater Geelong is permanently closing some of its Customer Service Centres as it responds to what it describes as &#8220;trends hastened by COVID-19 restrictions over the past two years&#8221;. Customers are encouraged to pay bills and get access to general information, simple forms and transactions via the city&#8217;s website and call centre. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bellarinetimes\/news\/city-customer-service-changes\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":48586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-48585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>City makes changes to Customer Service Centres - Bellarine Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bellarinetimes\/news\/city-customer-service-changes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"City makes changes to Customer Service Centres - Bellarine Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"THE City of Greater Geelong is permanently closing some of its Customer Service Centres as it responds to what it describes as &#8220;trends hastened by COVID-19 restrictions over the past two years&#8221;. Customers are encouraged to pay bills and get access to general information, simple forms and transactions via the city&#8217;s website and call centre. 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