Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Corporate Governance and Licensing presented the report.

This report detailed the service provided through the Council’s Customer Service Team and the priorities high contact service areas strive to deliver.

A telephone and call handling report was presented to the Rural and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 12 March 2025. The report focused on the position regarding call handling.

The Customer Service Team handle customer interactions in various ways for 17 high contact service areas, as well as general public enquiries. The report provides an update regarding customer interactions for these service areas for 2024/25.

It was noted that over 1000 feedback comments were received from the website, it was queried what common issues were raised and how they were actioned or resolved.

ACTION: For the Head of Service (Revenues, Benefits and Customer Service) to provide figures on common issues raised on digital feedback forms and how they were actioned or resolved.

Staff members were enjoying the space in the new Customer Service Centre and felt as if it had a positive atmosphere.

It was queried whether staff were coping with a major increase in phone calls or whether any new staff had been recruited due to the increase in activity.

It was highlighted that 79% of calls were answered and 21% of calls were rerouted to a particular department, meaning 100% of calls were answered. A query was raised on abandoned calls as they had not been recorded. It was questioned how many rings a call would have before being answered.

The digital increase in activity was due to the improvements on the website and customer portals that had been launched. There was not an increase of staffing levels within the team, at present the increase in volumes were manageable. 

It was clarified that 21% of calls were abandoned and not answered at first point of contact. However, the increase in digital and other contacts showed that people were moving into using this form of contact.

Complaints and feedback received regarding the ability to contact the Council had not increased which indicated calls were being re-routed to a different type of contact channel. 

The Council had an aim to answer calls within 8 rings, however, if this wasn’t possible, callers were advised to use other methods of contact. The caller also had an option for a voicemail and callback facility.

It was queried whether terminated calls were distinguished separately to dropped calls.

The Head of Service (Revenues, Benefits and Customer Service) confirmed that if a call ended, it was unknown whether the call dropped, or the call was terminated by a customer. Members were requested to encourage residents to inform the Council of any issues with phone calls, which could be tracked via time, date etc.

It was queried what the Council could do to assist vulnerable elderly people who cannot access the internet, website or landline phone.

The Customer Services Manager confirmed the Council had face-to-face customer service centres in the North and South of the District. A service of appointments, drop-ins and advice was available in all offices.

One Member raised that residents had provided good feedback on the new customer service centre.

A suggestion was made on whether SKDC’s Customer Services could compare customer service levels with other local councils.

It was requested that any future reports include details on resolution rates.

The Council worked alongside other customer service teams across Lincolnshire and met with them quarterly to compare different services and how they are delivered.

It was highlighted that resolution rate information was received from a variety of ways. The Council did not have a customer management system that all services could feed into, making resolution rates difficult to obtain. Anecdotally, resolution rates could be seen through feedback from customers through complaints.

As part of the Customer Experience Strategy, an action plan would come to the Committee in October 2025. A theme within the action plan is technology which could explore how this could assist in gathering information to enable improvement of services going forward.

A query was raised on whether the team had a sufficient tracking and monitoring IT system for checking resolution rates.

Within the action plan, options around resources and budget would be brought forward. Workshops had taken place with other service areas to emphasise the service standards set across the Council.

The Committee:

1. Noted the report and provided feedback on the information contained in the report