Report attached.

The Director of Customer Services explained the strategy was designed to allow the Council to deliver excellent customer service and engagement. Residents would be treated as customers with staff being polite, professional and respectful as well as open to feedback.

The strategy aimed to embed a customer-centric culture, modernise service delivery and improve the customer experience. Good customer service covered areas including how people felt when interacting with the Council, how easy it was to contact the Council and whether people received the outcome they desired. The strategy would encompass the development of new customer service standards for both on-line and telephone contact.

The Council would be transparent about publishing performance and understanding what residents think about the Council. A new resident panel would be set up to improve communication and the Council’s website would be kept up to date with the latest information in order to encourage on-line reporting.

Digital exclusion would also be considered phone access via the contact centre continuing to be provided as well as face to face channels such as the contact centre.

The strategy had been approved by Cabinet in July and would be fully published in early September. Members were asked to consider how they wished to be kept informed of progress in this area.

A Member felt that the targets within the strategy were unrealistic and should be more achievable. The Director of Customer Services responded that targets should realistic but stretching. Average call waiting times had been reduced from five to two minutes and this showed that targets could be delivered. In terms of on-line take-up, there had been around 25,000 renewals of the garden waste service this year with 70% of these being booked on-line and a further 16% using the automated phoneline. It was hoped to reach 80-85% online transactions for all key services. It was accepted that staffing levels may reduce as more services went on-line.

The Director of Customer Services would lead a collaborative effort across the Council and it was aimed to use existing resources where possible. Now the overall strategy had been adopted, more detailed delivery plans could be adopted.

It was suggested that Councillors were a useful source of knowledge of resident experience with using services and that this could be fed back to officers. It was clarified that the contact centre was open 9 am – 5 pm and an out of hours line was also in operation. On-line service requests could be made 24:7 and staff were a mixture of home and office based. A Member felt that staff should be in the office more and it was clarified that staff rotas were moving from one day in the office per month to one day per week.

Oversight of call handling was example call lists and the Council was looking at a possible corporate telephony solution in the future. It was agreed that the Council’s Casetracker system could be demonstrated to Councillors. The system could distinguish between Councillors and the general public and hence a report line could be established to ward Councillors of issues in their ward.The Strategic Director of Resources added that the process for flagging urgent issues had been recently reviewed and more details would be given in due course.

It was accepted that Council signage was part of the wider customer experience and that this could be included in the strategy. The consistency of written communications would also be reviewed. As hard copy stocks ran down, documents for each service would be reviewed. Guidance to staff on the correct corporate tone of voice would also be produced. Electronic newsletters would be produced more frequently in order to more widely disseminate the ways in which people could contact the Council. The cost of producing the newsletters would be confirmed with communications.

A Member felt that examples of poor customer service and steps taken to improve could be brought to the Board for scrutiny. The Director of Customer s

Service would investigate what anonymised learning could be shared. Concerns were raised about difficulties in setting up a Residents’ Panel but the Director did not envisage major difficulties in recruiting to this. The Panel would reflect the demographic make-up of the wider population.

There were no current plans to extend the opening hours of the contact centre due to the cost of doing so. The order of menu options when residents phoned the contact centre could be varied with for example adult social care being the first option to contact. This could be tested with residents.

The key risks to delivery of the strategy included the level of additional funding needed, the need to encourage the whole of the organisation to support the agenda and any unexpected factors. It was confirmed that satisfaction levels of users of Council services provided by third parties was also being captured and work would be undertaken to promote the same customer service agenda in third party contractor standards.

The Strategic Director of Resources stated that she recognised that customer service was a major priority for Members. All requests for investment would be considered in light of the Council’s financial challenges. The need to improve customer service was recognised however and the Chief Executive confirmed that customer service remained a priority of the Administration. It was also emphasised that the strategy was designed to be delivered primarily within existing resources.

It was agreed that an update on progress with the strategy should be given to the Board on a six-monthly basis and that this should include external benchmarking.

The Board:

-       Noted for information the contents of the new Customer Service Strategy and agreed a schedule for updates on progress as outlined above.