Agenda item

INFORMATION NOTE OF THE CUSTOMER AND DIGITAL SERVICES MANAGER

 

This information note is to provide an update on the full year (24/25) performance regarding the Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s) for the Council the and the contractors that provide services on the Council’s behalf. This briefing accompanies the 3C’s dashboard at Appendix A, and the breakdown of the 3C’s by service and type at Appendix B.

 

 

 

Councillor Val Bryant, as Executive Member for Customer Experience, presented the information note entitled ‘Full Year Update on Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s) 24/25’, which was followed by a verbal update from the Customer and Digital Services Manager on the current performance of the Customer Service Centre, following which Members asked questions.

Audio recording – 4 minutes 23 seconds

 

Councillor Val Bryant, as Executive Member for Customer Experience, presented the Information Note entitled ‘Full Year Update on Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s) 24/25’ and advised that:

 

·             This Information Note included a comparison of data with 2023/24.

·             The number of compliments received by the Council had decreased and complaints, including those to contractors, had increased which was attributed to the change in leisure contract detailed at paragraph 3.10 of the information note.

·             The percentage of Stage 1 complaints resolved within ten days had increased to 91% which was well above the 80% target.

·             The percentage of visits and interactions with the Council resulting in a complaint remained below 1%.

·             Urbaser saw a 73% decrease in complaints received compared with the previous year.

·             The Council and their contractors received 184 compliments across a variety of service areas as shown at Appendix B.

·             24 Stage 2 complaints were received across all service areas but only 9 were justified to be escalated to senior managers.

·             5 complaints were received from the local ombudsman and 2 of these were upheld for fault and injustice and 3 were closed after initial enquiries.

·             Monthly meetings were arranged with the Customer and Digital Services Manager to discuss Customer Service Centre (CSC) related issues.

·             CSC staffing had been problematic through some parts of the year but was now at a good level.

·             The leisure contract change had caused call volume to increase greatly from April to September 2024.

·             Call volume had also increased due to increased resident anxiety which was attributed to some major events throughout the year.

·             One of these was Council Tax reminders which were sent to residents earlier in the year and required residents to use a new reference number and a huge number could not find this. This was being investigated to make sure that in future, anxieties stemming from new systems like this were pre-empted.

·             Increased resident anxiety had also come from the garden waste invoices which some residents had perceived to be a scam. Due to the timing of a police message through Herts Connected which advised residents to contact the business directly if they were unsure, call volume had increased from this as well.

·             To reduce resident anxiety resulting from Council correspondence, they would trial human blind testing on documents before they were sent out to residents to test that officer and Member perception matched that of residents.

·             A suggestion had been made to create another resident panel to focus on pinpointing problems on forms and applications before they were formally introduced to reduce the likelihood of resident anxiety resulting from these. 

·             Work would begin to take place on digital inclusion to ascertain the data on digitally excluded residents and how the Council could better reach them through their communication streams. Funding had been dedicated to this and an officer had been recruited to work on digital inclusion, however, they were still at the initial stages of this process.

·             The Council had a team focused on developing apps so that residents would be able to apply online for more services such as burials and grants with the latter currently being tested by the Community Partnerships team. 

·             On a broader spectrum, they would look to make things smoother for residents by utilising modern technology.

 

The Chair invited the Customer and Digital Services Manager to give a verbal update on the current performance of the Customer Service Centre. They advised that:

 

·             Alongside the 3Cs, the contact centre performance dashboard was requested by a previous Member of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee due to a period in 2024/25 in which callers were waiting for much longer than usual to get through to the CSC.

·             In Q1, 96% of calls were answered with a high percentage of those answered in 45 seconds.

·             In Q2, they began to experience staff shortages due long-term sickness and staff leaving the Council entirely which impacted on performance. Additionally, some staff moved internally to other service areas including HR and Revenues which was positive for the Council, however CSC were still losing staff. At this point, they were still receiving a very high volume of calls, emails, live chats and in-person visits at the reception from residents.

·             In Q3, temporary staff were recruited to ensure that CSC operations could continue, however, existing staff were required to train them which affected resourcing and it took time to recruit the staff required as some recruits were unable to commit to the work patterns and some found jobs elsewhere.

·             The customer service element of the waste contract was brought back inhouse in December 2024 and the staff from the waste contractor as well the waste customer contact were transferred over.

·             From there, contact levels in January and February became more manageable and they answered 94% of calls.

·             However, in March, there was a huge spike in customer contacts due to the garden waste subscription billing period. Digital Services had successfully delivered a Garden Waste Portal which lots of residents signed up to, but many customers still wanted to pay over the phone and this came at the same time as the annual Council Tax billing period which caused a rise in contact.

·             Enquiries on the removal of litter bins in this period as well meant they were receiving 601 calls on average per day in March compared to 269 in February. 

·             Alongside the garden waste subscriptions, a new payment system was introduced which some staff experienced issues with while trying to take payments over the phone. This was escalated to the payment system provider but took a while to fix. Consequently, calls were lasting longer which meant that customers were waiting for more time and because of this, they would try to recontact them in different ways such as hanging up and calling again, emailing or visiting reception.

·             In May, Council Tax recovery was sent out for the first time since last year due to unallocated payments in suspense, which created another increase in contact.

·             Automated phone systems were in use for the Revenues and Benefits lines for the past three years which provided customers with information and offered to text links to relevant forms on the Council website.

·             The system worked well handling 50-60% of calls, however, the contract with the supplier was expiring and the decision was taken to switch to a system that used AI instead. This system recognised customer intent by voice but would need to be trained over time to handle more calls in the future. 

·             Another Council Tax recovery period in July was predicted to create another contact spike.

·             More contacts were also foreseen in August due to the upcoming waste contract change, but they would get ahead of the potential spike by keeping staffing levels consistent and ensuring that all calls and emails were addressed to in a timely manner.

·             Call and email volumes had remained high in Q1 of 2025/26.

·             The average wait time in 2024/25 was 4 minutes 10 seconds, and it was noted that recently, for the reasons already outlined, the average wait time had been longer.

·             However, comparatively, the wait time on 10 June was detailed as being 1 minute 51 seconds, showing that it could fluctuate. 

·             In terms of benchmarking, two Councils had similar wait times in Q3 and Q4 of 2024/25 but on the other hand, they had much quicker wait times than many other councils in Q1 prior to staffing problems. 

·             Staffing was currently in a better position, and they were working more closely with the Waste team to ensure that Veolia were actioning issues effectively. 

·             Digital Services were integrating more waste services for residents to use on the Council website and onto the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system which would allow the CSC team to process enquiries more efficiently.

·             Issues with taking payments over the phone had been resolved and CSC team members were able to process these as required.

·             To mitigate the impacts of future busy periods, a reminder was sent to all service managers to contact CSC before invoices, leaflets or other documents were due to be sent to residents, as well as to let them know if any big meetings or group interviews would be taking place at the Council Offices to increase their awareness of an uptick in CSC contacts and allow them to consider resourcing in advance.

·             The situation on wait times and staffing had been largely out of their control, but they had slowly started to see some improvements after measures had been put in place.

·             Only 2 official complaints had been received regarding the wait times in 2024/25.

·             Working in the CSC team was not an easy job with some contacts requiring safeguarding referrals and extra time to process due to their complexity.

·             His team had done a good job in navigating this difficult period and they would continue to work towards hitting more targets.

·             Members were welcome to visit to the CSC to meet the team and see their work.

·             Most cases on the Councillor Portal were completed within 6 working days.

·             Of the 23 cases that took the longest to complete, 10 were down to councillors being unresponsive, some were genuine back and forth and others were due to other service areas being busier than usual.

·             A reminder had been sent to all service managers to respond to portal requests promptly where possible.

·             Councillors were encouraged to log constituent issues through the Councillor Portal to prevent email clog ups.

 

The following Members asked questions:

 

·             Councillor Matt Barnes

·             Councillor Jon Clayden

·             Councillor Paul Ward

·             Councillor Sadie Billing

·             Councillor Claire Winchester

·             Councillor Tina Bhartwas

 

In response to questions, the Customer and Digital Services Manager advised that:

 

·             To investigate repeat caller data, they would have to complete a thorough examination of the phone system. 

·             The key performance indicator for wait time was to answer at least 80% of calls within 45 seconds.

·             The garden waste subscription invoices suspected to be a scam by residents had not been edited to be customer friendly. This had now been addressed by the accounting team and any future documents would be in the North Herts Council document style.

·             The AI already in place on the Revenues and Benefits phone lines would be introduced to the Waste line. The AI would recognise caller intent and provide information based on this, but also text relevant links to the website if requested. However, if needed, the option to speak to a CSC representative would still be available.

·             The AI website chatbot went live on 29 May and was still in the training period, but so far, no complaints had been received on this.

·             The average duration of calls was unknown but the information on this would be circulated to Members following the meeting.

·             Complaint volume had gradually declined over the year for all Everyone Active sites, especially since the peak in September 2024 due to the introduction of a dishonour charge on lane swimming at the time.

·             They would speak to the Leisure and Active Communities team to see if there was a way of improving the response time of Everyone Active to enquiries.

·             Staff morale was currently at a good level because staff levels were optimal and the temporary staff were of a high calibre.

·             The Customer Service Team Leader and Senior Customer Services Officer helped to provide a supportive structure for staff when any issues arose.

·             Staff members could use the Employment Assistance Programme to speak to someone anonymously if needed. 

·             Management made themselves open and available for individual chats and staff members were comfortable in seeking them for support when working at CSC.

·             Statistics on the level of complaints received when Stevenage Leisure Limited were managing the leisure centre contracts compared to now would be sent to Members after the meeting.

·             The number of reception visits by residents were outlined on the performance dashboard and they had seen a big increase in customers visiting reception. The visits were logged internally on the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and they attempted to log customer sentiment on each visit.

·             It was difficult to log reasons on why customers visited the reception. If Customers visited purely for information, this was logged as a ‘Quick Call’ where they could also capture customer sentiment, but with more complex enquiries, cases had to be created and they would have to explore individual cases to gather data on reasons for visiting which would be difficult to do.

·             As seen on the performance dashboard, residents were mostly visiting the CSC reception if they were unable to contact them via telephone. 

·             They were aware that AI could use sentiment analysis to provide feedback on calls but unfortunately, it was not part of their contract with the provider. However, he would discuss this as a possibility with the provider going forward. 

·             They were more than happy to take feedback on the councillor portal in terms of request classifications and could action issues when required.

·             At the end of the year, optimisation would take place where the team would revisit existing apps and look to improve their functionality.

 

In response to questions, Councillor Val Bryant advised that:

 

·             Communication between service areas and CSC would have to be clearer to allow them to draw a timeline of key dates and pinch points throughout the year due to more than one event or billing period taking place.

·             Discussion had taken place with the Communications Manager on Everyone Active collecting data on customer interactions, but the statistics were unknown so an email would be circulated to Members on this following the meeting. 

·             Compliments were put onto the internal staff hub each month to be seen by all staff members and to spread good practice across the Council.

 

The Chair thanked Councillor Val Bryant and the Customer and Digital Services Manager for their presentations and Members noted the report.