Agenda item

To consider the Customer Care Strategy and recommend it to the Executive Committee to be approved. 

57.1          The Chair left the meeting and the Vice-Chair took the Chair.  

57.2          The report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 120-133, detailed the Customer Care Strategy which Members were asked to recommend to the Executive Committee for approval.

57.3          The Corporate Services Manager explained that the new strategy would help raise the profile of customer care and placed importance on the experience of customers and an understanding of how the standard of care influenced their opinion of the Council.  It looked at who the Council’s customers were, what they were telling the Council, what was meant by customer service and role of the teams within the Council. To ensure the Council was fulfilling its promise to put its customers first, and put them at the heart of what it did, the strategy set out themes and an action plan complemented those themes. The themes highlighted what the Council needed to focus on to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction: introducing a fresh set of customer service standards – this was very useful as it made it clear to customers what they could expect - the main change, identified at Appendix 2 to the report, was that staff were encouraged to take ownership of calls they received as well as the introduction of a reduction in the number of days taken to respond to emails from 10 to five to reflect best practice and meet customer expectations; to make it easier, simpler and more convenient for customers to interact with the Council when requiring a service – the Customer Services Team Leader was supporting changes in the Planning Admin Team to ensure customer care sat at the heart of the service and that first contact resolution was a priority; use feedback from residents to help shape future service delivery – the Citizens’ Panel was a useful tool but an extensive residents satisfaction survey was required; make sure staff are equipped with the skills to deliver high quality customer service – this did not come naturally to some people so there was a need to ensure customer service training was available to all; promote channel shift to provide services in a way that was more convenient for customers and less expensive for the Council – by doing this capacity would be freed up to support customers who needed the more traditional methods of communication; and working with partners in the Public Services Centre to ensure customers had a seamless and worthwhile experience when visiting the offices. The Corporate Services Manager explained that, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the way customers contacted the Council had changed and the impacts of that had been managed really well with very little negative feedback. The demand for the Area Information Centres had been very low as customers had been content with phone calls and virtual meetings and it was felt this success needed to be captured and encouraged but with the recognition that there would always be a need for face-to-face options.

57.4          A Member questioned whether the Council undertook any form of observation of customer service delivery and, if so, whether feedback was given to individuals on their performance as well as how success was celebrated. In response, the Corporate Services Manager advised that there was not a corporate-wide method of monitoring feedback but there was a low level of complaints which was good. The Council had online forms which asked for views on the digital services and set out the customer care standards so if the Council fell short the customer could feedback on that.  In terms of observations of staff, any issues/compliments would be fed into the Officer’s Personal Professional Development session which took place on an annual basis. In addition, the Council’s approach to customer care would now be introduced to the induction sessions so all new members of staff understood the importance placed on excellent customer experiences. Compliments were reported back to Management Team as a way of celebrating the success of the Council’s interactions with its customers. In response to a query regarding the Citizens’ Panel, the Corporate Services Manager confirmed that she would like more people to sign up to join the Panel and it was regularly promoted through the Borough News and social media and she asked Councillors to encourage residents to sign up if they wished to be involved. It was the intention that the Parish Newsletter would be reintroduced shortly, having ceased during the pandemic, and that would also include information about the Citizens’ Panel for promotion within the community. In comparison to some other Councils the number on Tewkesbury Borough Council’s Panel was quite good but it would be nice to have more. In terms of the residents satisfaction survey undertaken in 2019, the response rate had been far lower than she would have liked. It had been more of a snapshot survey and an in-depth survey was required which Officers were committed to undertaking in line with the recommendation of the Peer Challenge Review report. The Head of Corporate Services confirmed that, if there was to be a cost associated with the undertaking of a survey, this may need to be approved by Members; the last survey had been around five or six years ago and had used a template from LG Inform which had required external expertise to collate the information at a cost of approximately £5,000.

57.5          In response to a query regarding the introduction of a target for answering the phones, the Corporate Services Manager advised that this had been considered but it was felt it would be hard to monitor and, actually, most people answered the phone quite quickly which was the reason the strategy focused on what happened when a call was not answered i.e. responding to voicemails etc. A Member noted that he had called earlier that day and had felt the number of options (one to eight) were excessive. He questioned whether the Council gave out reference numbers for customer enquiries. In response, the Corporate Services Manager indicated that reports made through the online system were provided with a reference number but telephone calls probably were not. The Member also noted that he had not received a copy of the most recent edition of the Tewkesbury Borough News and he was unsure whether many people in his village had received it. The Corporate Services Manager undertook to look into this. Another Member advised that there could be an issue with the classification provided to the delivery of the paper by Royal Mail and the Corporate Services Manager advised that she would investigate this as she had not been aware of an issue. In terms of the annual customer training, two sessions had been provided so far and they had received quite a lot of interest from a variety of Officers from different teams across the Council. In respect of it being made mandatory, the Corporate Services Manager was unaware of the Council having mandatory staff training but she would think about the best way to ensure those that needed it were encouraged to take up the opportunity via their managers.

57.6          Accordingly, it was

                 RESOLVED           That the Customer Care Strategy be RECOMMENDED TO                         EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE to be APPROVED.