We are pleased to deal with enquiries from our residents, visitors and potential visitors. We are also pleased to deal with enquiries from our trade partners in delivering service to people wishing to access all that Bournemouth has to offer. This document sets out the service standards that can be expected by the public in making enquiries regarding tourism services.

Our staff will at all times treat users of the service with courtesy and respect.

1. We will respond to all letters e-mails or other requests for information within seven working days. In responding to you, we will always give full contact details of a named officer in case you need to follow up your enquiry.

2. We aim to answer all telephone calls from you within 5 rings. Occasionally your call may be answered by our voicemail facility, which will give you an opportunity to leave a message. We will respond to all voicemail messages within 2 working days.

3. If we cannot give you an answer to your enquiry at the time, we aim to respond to you within 2 working days.

4. Our staff will wear identification badges when on duty at the reception area. Any officer on duty in the Town will carry their official identification badge including photo, and will produce this when required.

5. If we are unable to keep an appointment, we will contact you to inform you of the situation at the earliest possible opportunity.

6. We regularly review our service through established consultation mechanisms with both the tourism industry and as a result of customer feedback. Feedback we receive from you is important to us. We value your comments, which are used to make improvements to the service we provide to you. Some telephone calls are recorded for the purposes of quality monitoring and complaint handling.

7. If you wish to make a complaint about our service you should bring this to our attention. If your complaint cannot be resolved at that time (i.e. during a telephone call, or at our Visitor Information Bureau) we will aim to;
• Send out an acknowledgement to your complaint within two working days of receiving it
• Give you a full reply within ten working days (if we can deal with the complaint) or,
• Keep you fully informed of the progress of the complaint every ten working days (if it takes longer to deal with your complaint.)
If you are unhappy with our findings you can contact the Head of the Business Unit, who will review the evidence and report back with the result of their investigation. The contact details for the Head of Business Unit will be provided in our response letter.
If, after this stage, you are still not satisfied with the Council's response, you can refer the matter to an Independent Director for review. The Directors contact details will be provided in the response letter from the Head of Business Unit.

A Commitment to Mutual Respect.

You can expect the best service from us and we will endeavour to provide that service with respect and dignity. In return, we ask the same from you.

Where a member of the public has been abusive either on the telephone or face to face, staff will politely but firmly close the conversation and inform their line manager, the details of which will be recorded on an incident review form.

The department cannot solve every query all of the time, but will strive to ensure that the customer is comfortable with the service they have received and with a clear notion of the next steps to take.

Meeting the Diverse Needs of Our Customers.

We will treat all people fairly, whatever their age, sexual orientation, religious belief, disability, gender or race. Everyone will have equal access to our service.

Where specific assistance is needed, e.g. hearing, assistance with reading or translation requirements, we will endeavour to provide the required assistance.
We will endeavour to provide a lingual service where demand justifies this.

Bournemouth Visitor Information Bureau
Delegate reservations team
Tourism marketing and events
Policy and Administration
Town centre management