Wyndham council’s transition into a virtual business model for vital services has been almost seamless.
Mayor Cr Josh Gilligan said many of the council’s services had equal, if not more, users this April compared to the same time last year – showing a continuity of excellent service through virtual platforms instead of face-to-face.
“Even though the doors of our civic centre are closed temporarily, our staff have been working remotely to deliver high-quality customer service,” Cr Gilligan said.
Cr Gilligan said more than 12,000 residents had called the council’s customer service team during April. There had been a 425 per cent increase in emails being received and a 404 per cent increase in people using the council’s webchat service to resolve their queries.
“Some services are still being delivered face-to-face, such as delivered meals, which has seen an increase of 12 per cent from last April – with 2438 deliveries last month – and we were only down 12 patients for our vaccination program this year,” Cr Gilligan said.
“Even though our maternal and child health service was delivered via telehealth this April, we still received a huge number of consultations, with 3320 residents using the service, just 242 less than last year when the regular service was operational.”
“We have seen an expected spike in residents ordering hard waste collections while the refuse disposal facility was closed, with 4110 bookings for collections last month compared to 2658 for the same time last year.”
“Our economic growth team has been a great source of information and support for many local businesses … The team has been in contact with more than 500 businesses and individuals during the month of April.”
“Our town planning and building department has been operating as usual, although offsite, and have issued 150 planning decisions, completed 255 planning information requests and 10 demolition requests … almost identical to the figures from April last year.”
“We’ve never had so much interest in our libraries: Last month we had a 109 per cent increase in new membership compared to last April, with 672 new members.”
“The pausing of our live shows did not stop us hosting our REVEAL exhibition online and we had the biggest attendance to one of our opening nights in council’s history with more than 4000 people taking a virtual tour of the city’s stunning art collection on our new Wyndham Together website.”
“The Wyndham Together website, which aims to keep residents in touch with local arts and culture, green living, and exercise and sporting services, has had more than 21,000 visits for the month of April.”
Details: www.wyndham.vic.gov.au
