Agenda item

8.1

The Committee received a report of the Director of HR and Customer Services. The report provided an overview of 2021-22 year to date performance for Customer Services Contact Centre. The report identified issues that affected performance and identified future developments and areas for improvement.

8.2

The Head of Customer Services, Paul Taylor, explained that a similar report was presented to the Committee in October 2021. It was mentioned that this report looked at quarter 3 for the financial year 2021/22 and quarter 4 up to the 28 February 2022.

8.3

The Head of Customer Services stated that performance in the Contact Centre had improved during March although agreed that there was a lot of work that still needed to be done to achieve a higher standard.

8.4

The Committee were informed that the contact centre was impacted following the pandemic which did influence performance. Most of the staff did begin to work from home and that was still the case for some members of the team. There was also several members of staff assisting with the Council’s Test, Track and Isolate team although it was anticipated that they would return to the team at the end of March.

8.5

 The Head of Customer Services believed the staff were working efficiently and was proud of how they dealt with high volumes of calls daily. It was added that the performance figures highlighted in the report was due to various factors such as delays with cross service enquires and losing 4 front line advisors.

8.6

The Committee were informed that improvement measures and future developments were highlighted under 5.1 of the report.

8.7

It was explained that there were new technological innovations taking place which would improve the customers experience, these were set to be trialled over the upcoming weeks.

8.8

Customer Services were also looking to cross skills two if the teams so that they were able to deal with enquiries relating to the others team. This would reduce delays in responding and relieve some pressure off the teams.

8.9

The Head of Customer Services referred to the Local Government Association’s (LGA) peer review of the contact centre, mentioned in the report. Following the review, the LGA also stated that some grant funding may become available.

8.10

There was an ambition to deliver a customer portal, that informed customers on the position of their enquiry. This aimed to reduce the number of follow up calls. The LGA funding would partly fund that project.

8.11

Members of the Committee would be welcome to observe members of staff in customer services and also to test new innovations if they wished.

8.12

Members of the Committee asked questions and the key points to note were: -

8.13

A Member of the Committee raised concerns around the pace at which the contact centre was improving. It was mentioned that it was continuously being stated that new developments would be put in place which would improve the performance, although nothing seemed to really change or make a difference. The Member sympathised with members of staff and mentioned the underlying issue was that residents have problems directly contacting other areas in the Council. Therefore, they had to contact the contact centre. The Head of Customer Services agreed with the comments made by the Member of the Committee. It was added that a new telephony system was introduced during the pandemic which had also led to introducing new innovations such as live chat.

8.14

The Head of Customer Services mentioned how it was important to deal with issues the first time around, so that residents were not trying to contact the contact centre constantly to follow up on their enquiry.

8.15

A Member raised concerns as residents could potentially receive phone call charges whilst waiting for the contact centre to answer their call. It was also suggested that future reports also outlined the quickest and slowest answer times, along with the averages so the Committee had more indication of how long some people had to wait. The Member also suggested that the Committee saw a timeline of when mentioned developments were likely to be implemented. The Head of Customer Services agreed to circulate a document to the Committee on this.

8.16

A Member did not believe that following the same approach continuously, would solve any of the issues raised at the meeting and highlighted in the report. It was stated that the same promises were constantly been brought up at Committee, yet there was not much progress on performance over the past several years. It was mentioned that a wider approach needed to be carried out, to look at how the fundamentals could be changed to improve performance. The Acting Chief Executive, Eugene Walker, stated there was many aspects the Council needed to consider before looking to change the fundamentals within customer services.  A lot of the issues were cross service issues therefore, joined up working needed to be improved and there needed to be a clear and realistic plan for the Council to follow. The Acting Chief Executive agreed to take Members comments away and bring back a report to the Committee that addressed these issues.

8.17

RESOLVED: That the Audit & Standards Committee (1) considered the report in order to provide its view on the performance of the Contact Centre and the issues raised (2) received a timeline of when developments were to be implemented by the Head of Customer Services; and (3) received a report of the Acting Chief Executive following discussions from the committee at 8.13 to 8.16 above.