Of all the ways that departments can support frontline employees to deliver relevant and responsive services to customers – many of which are discussed below – the most important is communication.

Effective communication – to and from frontline employees – is fundamental for effective customer service.

Communication occurs at many levels:

Departments

• Departments keep frontline employees informed of broad priorities and policies and use feedback from frontline employees to inform those priorities and policies. 

Teams

• Employees in teams cooperate to deliver services well, including the development of better strategies to improve customer satisfaction with services. 

Customers

• Frontline employees communicate with customers to ensure services are delivered in effective and responsive ways to meet customer needs.

Inter-agencies

• Employees communicate across department borders with other service providers to ensure a coordinated approach to customers. 
  Communication includes exchanging opinions, sharing ideas, developing mutual understandings, identifying issues, problem-solving, negotiations, resolving conflicts, and conveying experiences to others. 

Lack of communication leads to isolation, lack of direction and disorganisation and associated problems such as poor morale, low productivity and reduced customer service quality. 

Frontline employees need a wide variety of skills and systems so they can communicate well in different circumstances (one-to-one discussions, informal groups, formal committees etc.); by different technologies (phone, email, writing etc.); and with different audiences (Ministers, senior executives, colleagues, customers and stakeholders).