Good services to every customer are at the core of the Land Registry’s mission. In the context of customer services, we will not hesitate to review, rethink and revamp the way we work so as to serve each customer better. We rely on many different relationships to deliver services successfully to the community. Our aim is to create partnerships of trust that help to give better service to all. We depend on our customers for feedback on the quality of our services and ideas for improvement. We listen carefully to them and seek solutions that help customers as well as achieve our objectives. We therefore have a number of communication channels, both formal and informal, helping us to maintain an open dialogue with our customers. We have a dedicated Management and Customer Services Division that is responsible for planning and coordinating customer services.

Our established aims are:

• To ensure delivery of value-for-money quality services to customers;
  
  
• To reach out to customers and make the Land Registry readily accessible;
  
  
• To keep existing and prospective customers well informed of the Land Registry’s services, activities and/or changes affecting them;
  
  
• To anticipate and understand customer needs and expectations;
  
  
• To ensure prompt and positive action to satisfy customers; and
  
  
• To promote a business-friendly Land Registry.

We value all customers’ feedback as it provides vital information and valuable insights to help us make sure that we meet our customers’ needs.

In 2007/08, the Customer Service Manager received over 280 commendations, suggestions and complaints from our customers through the Customer Service Hotline, Land Registry website, comment cards and letters.

Customer Comment Cards and Suggestion Boxes are provided in all our offices to collect customers’ feedback and suggestions about the services provided. The chart below shows the customer satisfaction rate drawn from the Comment Cards:

(A) New Design of Comment Card

As part of our continuous commitment to service improvement, a new comment card was introduced in January 2008 with enhanced features and to facilitate customers in providing their suggestion for service improvement.

(B) Small-scale Customer Service Survey

To gauge customer’s views for continuous improvement and to measure customer satisfaction level on the improvement measures implemented after last survey, a small-scale customer service survey was conducted in May 2007.

Major results concerning provision of service and staff performance are listed below:

Overall satisfaction rate with our IRIS Online Services was 69.5%, up from 65.9% last year.

We have taken the following follow-up actions on the comments of our customers for continuous service improvement:

• Extend service hours for return of stopped deeds to include lunch hours with effect from 3 January 2008;
  
  
• Assign a Floor Manager to assist customers at the Customer Centre;
  
  
• Set up additional service/payment counters/IRIS self-service terminals/counter workstations to minimize the waiting time for service;
  
  
• Improve signages to guide customers to their required services; and
  
  
• Improve the overall ventilation system to provide a comfortable environment for customers.

Two Customer Liaison Groups, one for private sector customers and one for government departments and public bodies, have been set up for an ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders.

The objectives of the Customer Liaison Groups are:

• To improve the Land Registry’s understanding of customers’ needs and expectations;
  
  
• To improve customers’ understanding of the Land Registry’s policies, services and procedures; and
  
  
• To exchange views on operational and service delivery issues.

The private sector group is composed of representatives from the Law Society of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Association of Banks, the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors, the Hong Kong Real Estate Agencies General Association and the Society of Hong Kong Real Estate Agents Limited. The public sector group comprises representatives from government departments and public bodies which are frequent users of the Land Registry’s services.  

In 2007/08, six Customer Liaison Group Meetings were held. We thank the members from the private sector and representatives from the public sector as listed in Annex II for their continuous support to the Land Registry.

The Land Registry Joint Standing Committee, comprising the Land Registrar, his senior staff and representatives of the Law Society of Hong Kong, meets regularly to discuss and exchange views on land registration matters, the Registry’s services provided to the legal practitioners and implementation of title registration system.

The Committee held its first meeting on 11 February 1964 and, over the years, has proven to be very useful in promoting closer co-operation between the Land Registry and the legal profession.

The Committee continues to play a significant role in assisting the Land Registry to maintain an efficient and effective land registration system.

In 2007/08, six circulars were issued:

• The Street Index (39th Edition) and The New Territories Lot/Address Cross Reference Table (8th Edition);
  
  
• Implementation of Five-day Week in the Land Registry;
  
  
• E-Memorial Form for Lodgement;
  
  
• Practices in Withholding Instruments from Registration and Documentary Proof for Application for Refund of Registration Fee in respect of Instruments with No or Nominal Consideration;
  
  
• Special Service Arrangements during the Relocation of the Land Registry Data Centre; and
  
  
• Schedule and Special Service Arrangements for maintenance and Upgrade of Integrated Registration Information System (IRIS) in 2008.

(F) Land Registry News

To keep customers and business associates abreast of the Land Registry’s current activities and progress of the development projects carried out in the Land Registry, a regular newsletter, the "Land Registry News", is published for general distribution. Two issues were published in 2007/08.


(G) Information Pamphlets

During the year, the Land Registry published the following pamphlets to give a detailed account of the various activities and achievements of the Registry over the year and the progress of the development project as well as the performance pledge of the year:

• Land Registry Trading Fund Annual Report 2006/07; and
  
• Performance Pledge 2007/08.

Our relationship with customers is beyond geographical boundary. We maintain close ties with our overseas counterparts. In 2007/08, we received eight delegations comprising over 40 visitors from the Mainland and the governments of USA, Singapore, Middle East and Australia who wanted to know more about our work or to discuss specific subjects. These contacts gave us a good opportunity to benchmark our services with overseas jurisdictions, exchange experience in land registration and information on development projects, and look for new ideas on improving our operations and services.

The visitors are as follows:

• Director of the Northern Territory Land Information Systems, Australia;
  
• Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, The Cato Institute, USA;
  
• Real Estate Department of the government of Dubai;
  
• Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore;
  
• Dalian Real Estate Authority;
  
• Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Land Resources and Housing Management;
  
• Shanghai Municipal Housing, Land and Resource Administration Bureau; and
  
• Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Land Resources and Housing Management.

The Land Registry’s homepage is a comprehensive source of news and information on our core business and progress of development projects conveniently accessible to people throughout the world twenty-four hours a day. Our homepage (http://www.landreg.gov.hk) provides user-friendly navigation features and is available in Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and English versions. It provides users with access to all main Land Registry publications and a quick-link directly to the IRIS Online Services (http://www.iris.gov.hk). We regularly update and enhance the contents of our website. In 2007/08, there were 2,658,670 visits to the homepage, an increase of 10% compared to 2006/07. From our website survey, 38% of the visitors rated it as good and above. To ensure that our homepage is informative and user-friendly, we invited a contractor to revamp our homepage in September 2007. The new homepage was rolled out on 1 April 2008.

(J) Customer Service Hotline

To enhance our communication with customers, a Customer Service Hotline, telephone number 3105 0000, equipped with an Interactive Voice Response System, has been set up. A wide range of information is available by listening to recorded messages or ordering information leaflets and forms by fax. A voice mail facility is also available. Information about the hot keys for using the hotline is available at our homepage.

The Land Registry has from 1 July 2007 enhanced the hotline service and extended the live operators’ service hours (except the Technical Support Help Desk) by transferring all calls received between 17:30 and 00:30 the next day for Monday to Friday and between 08:30 and 00:30 the next day for Saturday, Sunday and public holidays to 1823 Citizen’s Easy Link.

During the year, the number of calls received was 123,643, averaging 10,304 calls per month.


(K) Meet the Clients (private / public sectors)

In response to the positive feedback to the pilot “Meet the Clients” session on “Common Reasons for Withholding Instruments from Registration” held in March 2007, the Land Registry has conducted seven more similar sessions in July and August 2007 with participants from solicitor firms and government departments. The sessions covered essential points to note to avoid simple errors in preparing instruments and memorials, a refresher briefing on the use of the Memorial Form Easy Guide in our homepage, a forum for experience sharing as well as a tour to our Customer Centre.

The sessions were well received. The “Frequently Asked Questions” on our homepage were subsequently enriched incorporating the major discussions during the experience-sharing forum. Additional arrangements to simplify completion of memorials and reduce stopped deeds were also announced to customers through the circular LRCM No. 6/07 issued in December 2007.

Briefing sessions on the use of IRIS Online Services were organized for customers in both the private and public sectors in November 2007. 231 users had attended the briefing sessions.

To further promote the IRIS Online Services and update customers of the enhancements to the Services, we have planned to conduct another round of IRIS Online Services briefing sessions in the 3rd quarter of 2008.

We joined other government departments to form the “HKSAR Government Pavilion” to showcase IRIS Online Services and the e-Memorial form at the International ICT Expo in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre scheduled for April 2008. The event attracted over 22,500 visitors from 124 countries and regions in 2007.