Agenda item

The purpose of this report is to provide the Committee with the outturn position for 2022/23 regarding customer interactions and call handling as at 31 March 2023 within the Customer Service team and high contact service areas.  The report will also provide an update regarding the review of the Customer Experience Strategy and various projects being undertaken by the service.

The Head of Revenues, Benefits and Customer Service presented the report. It provided the Committee with the outturn position for 2022/2023 regarding customer interactions and call handling as at 31 March 2023.

The report also provided an update regarding the review of the Customer Experience Strategy and various projects undertaken by the service. The Customer Service Team handled customer interactions in various ways for 15 service areas, as well as public enquiries.

During 2022/2023 there were 211,292 interactions which included telephone calls, emails and in-person. The interactions were due to be analysed further, with specific focus on the ‘apply for it’, ‘pay for it’ and ‘report it’ web pages to determine which areas channel shift had been successful.

The level of call handling by the Customer Service Team was monitored on a weekly basis with the percentage of calls handled as at the 31 March 2023 being 87%. This had further increased to 89% as at the end of June 2023.

The Customer Service Team had seen a reduction in staffing levels due to a number of resignations over recent months. The reason for the resignations were varied, with five being due to progression into other service areas within the Council and external career progression.

All vacancies had been recruited to and the training of new staff would take between six-nine months to complete.

To support the improvement of call handling, the team had implemented the introduction of the new telephony solution, enabling all staff to set-up voicemail and call forwarding.

In October 2023, a virtual operator solution would be introduced, replacing the current ‘press 1, press 2’ process. The system would work via voice activation and speech recognition, asking the caller to state which service or Officer they require by name. The call would then be transferred immediately in the call queue or directly to the Officer. If the virtual operator was unable to successfully understand the caller on two occasions, the call would then be transferred immediately to a switchboard operator.

A further update would be provided at the next meeting of the Committee.

Members thanked the Customer Service team for their continuous work.

A Member raised concern in the reduction of overall amenity space at the customer service centre. It was queried how long the customer service staff would continue to operate from the Guildhall, Grantham, as this was understood to be a temporary measure.

Further concern was raised on possible disturbance of colleagues when members of the public were visiting the desk and the privacy of residents visiting, was discussed.

The Head of Revenues, Benefits and Customer Service highlighted that the time frame of the temporary measure was unknown. The provision of service was continuously under review. Minimal feedback had been received from customers and staff on the temporary accommodation measures.

It was noted that customer services staff working in the Guildhall, Grantham supported and provided a service to the customer, where the customer was a priority. Staff had the opportunity to undertake ‘back-office work’ when a colleague was dealing with a customer to prevent being disturbed. Staff may also book a desk at the Picture House from 1pm onwards, due to the ‘walk-in’ hours of Customer Services, where they could undertake their day-to-day work.

The ‘walk-in’ customer service centre had another room to protect the privacy of customers that could be utilised at request.

Concern was raised on the 20% reduction in total interactions with the general public from 2019/2020 to 2022/2023, which was almost all driven by in-person interactions. It was questioned as to how confident Officers were that the 20% reduction had not led to vulnerable people in the community not receiving the information they required.

It was confirmed that the question would be answered in further detail at the next Committee meeting, as an analysis of the website to understand whether that 20% reduction in in-person interactions had seen an increase of interactions by 20% on the website.

That the Committee:

1.    Notes the report and were invited to ask questions relating to the report.