Commitment to customer service
- We are absolutely committed to the highest standards of customer service.
- We welcome contact from our customers. We aim to be approachable and helpful, and will treat you
- with courtesy at all times.
- We value all forms of feedback.
- We will be fair and professional in all our dealings with customers.
- We will deal with your queries promptly and efficiently.
- We will communicate with you in clear language.
- We will keep our website useful, informative and accessible, with free access for all.
Publication of statistics
- We publish all of our statistics online at www.cso.ie.
- We set challenging deadlines for the publication of our statistics, and we measure the achievements of these deadlines.
- We announce our publication schedule in advance calendars published on our website.
- Our publications show contact names and numbers.
- We will publish methods and quality reports for all our statistics.
- Whenever possible, we will provide additional statistical analysis if you request it.
Collection of statistics
- We value our data providers and treat them with respect.
- As guaranteed by law, the details you provide are kept strictly confidential and are used only for statistical purposes.
- We aim to balance, as fairly as we can, the need to collect statistics and the burden on our respondents.
- Our survey forms contain contact details for the CSO section that issued them.
- We are developing technologies to simplify and, where possible, reduce the task of responding to our surveys.
Contacting the CSO
By telephone
- We will answer 90% of calls within 20 seconds.
- When answering, we will identify our business areas and ourselves by name.
- If we cannot give an immediate answer to your query we will take the details and call you back.
- If your query requires us to take time in putting an answer together, we will give you an estimate of how long this will take.
- We will deal promptly with messages left on voicemail, and return calls generally within one day.
By email
- We will respond to emails to our main email addresses (information@cso.ie, webmaster@cso.ie) within two working days.
- If we cannot give you a full reply within this time, we will give you an estimate of how long it will take.
- The “out of office” facility will be used on email, where necessary, to ensure that you have another point of contact.
By letter
- We will reply to your letters within five working days.
- If we cannot give you a full reply within this time, we will give you an estimate of how long it will take.
- Our correspondence will contain the name and contact number of the person dealing with you.
Personal callers
- You will be collected from reception within 10 minutes of your arrival.
- You will be able to conduct your business in private.
- If the person you wish to speak to is unavailable, we will get somebody else to help you.
Service through Irish
- We continue to implement a scheme for provision of a bilingual service in accordance with the Official Languages Act, 2003.
- If you contact us in Irish we will arrange to answer you in Irish.
- We will make all our survey forms available in Irish.
- We will make our major corporate documents (such as our Statement of Strategy) available in Irish.
- Tá leagan Gaeilge den cairt seo ar fáil.
Your feedback
- We provide opportunity for feedback on our website, publications and survey forms.
- We analyse feedback, and take it into account in our future plans.
- We will use statistical liaison groups to keep in contact with users of statistics and providers of data.
- We undertake regular customer satisfaction surveys in conjunction with the National Statistics Board.
Monitoring our performance
- We will monitor the commitments in this Charter, and take action on any that are not met.
- In our Annual Report we will give information on the implementation of this Charter.
Complaints
Initially your complaint can be addressed to the relevant section within the office. The staff there will try to find a speedy remedy.
If you are not happy with their response we will arrange for your complaint to be officially investigated by the Customer Relations Officer:
Mr Ken Kennedy
Customer Relations Officer
Central Statistics Office
Skehard Road
Cork
LoCall 1890 313 414
Phone (+353) 21 453 5036
Fax (+353) 21 453 5555
Email cro@cso.ie
If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the review by the Customer Relations Officer the matter can be appealed to:
Ms Elaine O'Mahoney
Head of Communication & Dissemination
Central Statistics Office
Skehard Road
Cork
LoCall 1890 313 414
Phone (+353) 21 453 5106 / (+353) 1 498 4317
Email elaine.omahoney@cso.ie
We hope that we have been able to resolve your complaint satisfactorily. However,
if you remain unhappy with our response then you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman is impartial and free to use.
The Ombudsman will ask you for details of your complaint and to provide a copy of this letter
(our final response to your complaint). The best way to do this is through:
• ‘Make A Complaint’ at www.ombudsman.ie
The Ombudsman
6 Earlsfort Terrace,
Dublin 2,
D02 W772
Phone (+353) 1 639 5600
Fax (+353) 1 639 5674
Contact
The CSO has offices in both Cork and Dublin at:
Skehard Road
Cork
Ardee Road
Rathmines
Dublin 6
Swords Business Campus
Swords
Co Dublin
All our extensions can also be contacted through either our Cork or Dublin phone numbers which are:
(+353) 21 453 5000 (Cork) or
(+353) 1 498 4000 (Ardee Road) or
(+353) 1 895 1300 (Swords)
You can dial extensions directly by replacing the last four digits of these numbers with the appropriate extension number.
Fax numbers: (+353) 21 453 5555 or (+353) 1 498 4229 or (+353) 1 895 1399
Email addresses for CSO staff are in the form firstname.lastname@cso.ie
CSO on the web: www.cso.ie