Agenda item

Purpose: To receive the additional information requested regarding performance within Customer Services.

(Councillor Carol Jackson-Doerge joined the meeting at 6.40pm). 

The Commission considered a report (Agenda Item 9) providing the information previously requested on performance within Customer Services.

Sean Anderson circulated a slightly amended report which provided information on the average call duration and made the following points: 

·                    The length of time a caller waited for a response and the average call duration was noted as being highest for the Council Tax/Business Rates Service and for the Housing/Council Tax Benefits Service.  This was because of the nature of calls received to these services.  The length of wait was recorded from the first ring. 

·                    Performance since the previous report to the Commission had improved and much of this was owing to the newly installed telephony software.  This enabled incoming calls to be shared between a higher number of appropriately trained staff.

·                    An automatic call back system had also been installed and was offered to callers who were lower than fifth place in a call queue.  Callers were guaranteed a call back before the end of the day.  There was however little uptake of this service as people were willing to wait as they were seeking assurance. 

·                    Calls to the switchboard were not included in the performance reported.  Although 92% of the calls received by the switchboard were answered within 15 seconds. 

·                    Customers had the opportunity to provide feedback via the website and post face to face interviews.  A telephone survey was also being formed. 

·                    The number/percentage of abandoned calls was recorded and the target of no more than 4% of calls being abandoned had been achieved over recent years.  There had however been a recent issue with reporting this performance following a system update and this was being resolved with the provider.  The length of time a caller was waiting before they abandoned the call could not currently be recorded on the system.  

Some Members were of the view that the statistics were incomplete without this data and it was requested that the potential to incorporate this information be explored with the software provider. 

It was pointed out that no complaints had been received in this regard either by the service or corporately.  Sean Anderson went on to say that a high quality service was provided by well trained staff who had to deal with sometimes difficult callers.  An average of nearly 48,000 calls were answered in a matter of seconds. 

Sean Anderson agreed to explore with the software provider, Siemens, the potential for recording the length of time callers waited before they abandoned calls.  He did however point out that the most up to date software was already in use. 

The service provided was complimented by Members and particular mention was made that performance levels were maintained during the period of severe winter weather when an increased number of calls was received.  Sean Anderson agreed to pass on this praise to staff. 

RESOLVED that Sean Anderson would explore the potential for recording the length of time callers waited before they abandoned calls.