This Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlines the level of service customers of the Ask Herts Hubs can expect.
Our agreement to you
We will treat you in a professional and approachable way ensuring you are treated fairly, without prejudice and with respect to your right to privacy.
If you require a confidential space in which to speak to a member of the Ask Herts team, please let one of our Advisors know. There may be a short wait until a confidential space becomes free and we may need to offer you an alternative time to return to speak to us. If you have an urgent query that is confidential, please use our phone service. Please note, our phone calls are recorded; recordings are securely saved and only reviewable by a member of our management team.
We aim to resolve your general enquiries upon your first contact with Ask Herts. However, if we need to ask an expert for further assistance, we will ensure we pass on all the relevant information.
We are committed to consistently delivering a high quality service which meets the needs of all of our service users and encompasses the University’s values (Friendly, Ambitious, Collegiate, Enterprising and Student-Focused). We strive to bring these values to life and foster a culture of continuous improvement to enhance your experience.
You can find out more about the Ask Herts service and how you can access us here.
Our expected wait times
Our wait times can vary across the year.
Our busiest (peak) months are January, February, August, September and October when we welcome new and returning students to UH. As such, our wait times may be longer during these months. We will update our email automated response to advise of our current wait times.
We also find that Mondays and lunchtimes (12-2pm) are busy both in our Ask Herts Hubs and on the phones so you may want to avoid contacting us at those time to avoid a longer wait.
Ask Herts Hubs (in person service)
We aim to serve you at our on campus front counters within a 20-minutes of your arrival (this may be longer during peak times). We aim to speak to you as quickly as possible but want to ensure all students are able to discuss their queries in detail and that we can fully resolve their query wherever possible.
Phone service
We aim to answer your call within 5-8 minutes (this may be longer during peak times). We will try to resolve your query during our phone call but at times, we may need to connect you to a specialist team to ensure that you get the information you need.
We offer a call back phone service, so you don't have to be on hold for extended periods. You will keep your place in the queue but will receive a call back from the team when you reach the front of the queue. This service can be requested while you are waiting on hold.
Email queries
We aim to respond to your email within 5 working days during our non-peak periods; this will increase to 10-15 working days in our peak periods.
Feedback
- We will listen to all feedback that is received, and respond where possible
- We will continually use feedback to gauge our effectiveness as a ‘one-stop’ service and will review our processes and procedures and make changes accordingly
- The action we take against feedback received is detailed on this page.
Complaints
We hope that you are happy with the support you have received from the Ask Herts team and that you never have reason to complain. If there is something you are not happy with, please tell us so that we can try to put matters right.
If you are still not happy with our response, please use our contact us form; your complaint will be escalated to a member of the management team to investigate,
If after the above investigation, you feel we still haven’t resolved your complaint satisfactorily, please refer to the University’s complaints procedure.
How are we doing?
Take a look at how we have acted on your feedback and what our average response times are on our 'You Said, We Did' page.
Building a Better Herts, Together
We are committed to treating all our students and customers with respect.
Our staff also have the right to be treated with dignity: respecting our staffing helps us to support you better!
Any verbal or physical abuse towards our staff will not be tolerated.
