When you are a business suffering due to COVID lockdowns, you need the financial support on offer as quickly and as easily as possible. It was that understanding that drove our customer operations and finance teams as they managed the various COVID business grant payments in 2021.

Dawn Crewe, Head of Customer Operations and Transformation, explains further:

“Clear communications was key. We needed our businesses to know how and when they would receive their grant payments. We set up information on our website, explaining everything including dates for payments. In that way, our  business owners knew to check the website and we could focus on processing the payments as quickly as possible.

Often announcements on new grants were made, with the full scheme details coming at a later date therefore specific information on our website was even more important. I am very proud of the dedication of our teams in establishing processes, sending out information and processes payments and quickly as possible.”

In total during the pandemic, we paid over 8,500 grant payments worth over £49.6M to businesses in Elmbridge.

Embracing digital communications and processes is a key component of our customer operations strategy. A digital Elmbridge will allow our residents to access information and transact with us at anytime.

Early in 2022 we launched an online account for our customers to benefit from the following:

• view your council tax bill and messages
• check payments made and due
• securely send us changes
• track the progress of your requests
• receive notifications when we have updates for you

For those residents will no access to the internet we are still available on the phone or through a face-to-face meeting via an appointment.