Building a customer-driven culture

Published on 31 October 2025

Enabled and accountable, accessible and inclusive, informed and analytical, and contemporary yet traditional.

Those aren’t just buzzwords, they are the strategic directions planned in Loddon Shire Council’s Customer Experience Strategy.

The strategy was adopted by Council at its October meeting and seeks to build a customer-driven culture through a variety of means, but also by building on the good work of a previous strategy adopted in 2018.

It highlights the importance of providing a responsive, accessible and efficient service to all customers and the value of using a blend of traditional and modern systems and processes to deliver a positive customer experience.

Extensive community engagement was undertaken earlier this year in towns across the shire seeking information to inform the strategy in a range of things from preferred methods of payment to how residents preferred to interact with Council staff.

Those results confirmed the need for an approach mixing modern and traditional methods – residents preferring to pay online but wanting to speak to someone in person over the phone.

Loddon Shire Mayor Dan Straub said the strategy was focused on Council’s customers getting the best possible experience.

“The strategy maintains a focus on staff education to deliver its aims and will include extensive collaboration with all staff to redevelop the existing Customer Service Charter,” he said.

“The Charter will set the standard for delivering on Council’s promise to customers and will be the framework which supports an organisational customer-centric culture that is seen to be business as usual.”

The Customer Experience Strategy can be viewed on Council’s website.