overview and scrutiny commission customer services review · 2020-07-24 · customer services was...

Overview and Scrutiny CommissionCustomer Services ReviewSummary ReportFebruary 2020

PRINCIPLES OF GOOD SCRUTINY:

Provides critical friend challenge

Enables the voice and concerns of the public

Carried out by independent minded councillors

Drives improvement

Adds value and demonstrates effectiveness

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CUSTOMER SERVICES REVIEW SUMMARY REPORT February 2020

1. Training

2. Customer

Charter

3. Acknowledgement

emails

4. Telephone

service

5. Performance information

6. Webforms

7. Website

8. Councillor accounts

Summary of Recommendations

Councillor Paul Haslam

Chair’s ForewordHarrogate Borough Council is continually upgrading its service to residents – its ambition is to be customer focussed, commercially driven and fit for the future. Customer service is a critical part of that delivery and the council has now embraced new technologies to achieve that goal. This rapidly moving situation can make it difficult for both residents and members to make best use of the service. We therefore propose the following changes to make the service more accessible, whilst making improvements to help members expedite matters that may have been missed or are more complex. The overall intention to ensure that the service provided by both the council and its council members is suitable and consistent.

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The Review Task and Finish Group (the Group) Membership:Councillor Paul Haslam (Chair)Councillor Chris AldredCouncillor Nick Brown (until May 2019)Councillor John MannCouncillor Pat MarshCouncillor Samantha MearnsCouncillor Nigel Middlemass

BackgroundA review of customer services at Harrogate Borough Council (HBC) was suggested by Members at an annual Overview and Scrutiny Workshop in July 2018 due to the following:

• Complaints from residents about telephone wait times.

• Member’s experiences when trying to contact services/individual officers (e.g. delayed/no response).

• Reports of incorrect and/or inconsistent responses to queries.

• A desire to improve communication between the public, Councillors and the council.

At the workshop all items suggested were prioritised, referring to the principles of good scrutiny. Customer services was regarded as ‘high priority’, it was of public interest and aligned with the corporate priorities of the council.

This summary report has been prepared for publication, the full review report is attached with appendices available on request.

Scope The Group developed a scope for the review which was to follow the ‘customer service journey’. This involved looking at different types of contact (face to face, telephone, email and webforms) and different types of customers (residents, businesses, Councillors and internal relationships). HBC-owned leisure sites and partnerships were outside of the scope.

The aims and objectives of the review were:

• To review the customer strategy/charter/standards.

• Understand what targets are in place for customer service and whether these are appropriate.

• To understand whether there are any gaps in the customer service process and whether these can be resolved.

• Identify areas where customer service was not at the level it should be and recommend improvements.

• To help ensure a consistent approach to customer service across the council.

To achieve these aims and objectives the review process looked at the following areas:

• The Customer Charter and Customer Service Strategy.

• The role of the Corporate Customer Service Team within the wider Council.

• Customer contacts and associated processes.

• Telephone performance information.

• HBC Website and Webforms.

• The Councillors role in Customer Service.

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ConclusionsThroughout the review Members were impressed with the professionalism, breadth of knowledge and commitment shown by HBC staff in delivering excellent customer service to the residents and businesses that the council serves. This was best demonstrated when Councillors spent time working alongside Customer Services Officers (CSOs) in the customer centre.

The information provided relating to telephone performance did not demonstrate excessive waiting times, with the average time a customer spent before abandoning a call in 2018/19 being around three minutes. However information could not be provided around the longest wait times for customers. Councillors were aware of instances when call wait times were in excess of the evidence provided.

Service areas that use Firmstep (customer case management software) can closely manage and monitor customer service standards in terms of timescales and details of responses, maintaining a record of all contacts. Email contacts to individual officers and departmental inboxes are difficult to monitor in terms of response times. This is the responsibility of individual officers and managers through the customer charter. There is therefore no reporting of overall volumes or response times. There is also an element of uncertainty when considering the provision of consistent and compliant customer service across the council due to the variety of systems used across different departments.

Throughout the review process Councillors identified opportunities to optimise contact with the council to support:

a) Channel-shift (increasing online contacts via the website/webforms).

b) Vulnerable residents (including those who did not have access to the internet).

c) Escalations where appropriate (without circumnavigating the systems/processes in place).

This could be achieved by identifying potential inconsistencies in service delivery and developing additional training for Councillors to raise awareness of existing good practices and policies.

Visits to the Corporate

Customer Service Team Evidence

sessions/performance information

Consultation exercise -

Head of Service and

MembersTesting of webforms

Process mapping

Discussion and analysis

MethodologyThe review was undertaken over a number of meetings of the Group with representatives from the customer service department. Meetings involved detailed discussion and analysis of a variety of evidence and feedback. Recommendations were developed based on issues raised and potential solutions.

The following is a summary of the research methods undertaken:

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Recommendations

2. Increase promotion and implement suitable measures to ensure compliance and monitoring of the Customer Charter.

1. Customer service training is made mandatory for Councillors as part of the Members learning and development programme.

The review highlighted several areas where increased awareness of customer service processes and systems could be beneficial.

For example:

• The Customer Charter.

• Defining contacts and complaints.

• Providing the optimum method for Councillors to assist a resident or business.

• Where to find useful information e.g. website/the hub/incident whiteboard/social media.

The Group noted that newly developed corporate customer service training had recently been approved. Whilst this training could potentially help embed customer service standards within services it wasn’t clear where Councillors fitted in.

Enhanced or mandatory customer training as part of the induction process could help raise awareness of the corporate approach to customer services, service standards and the Councillor’s role within this. The Group also noted the benefits of Councillors visiting the different areas of CCST e.g. welcome desk/e-delivery. Due to the pace of change in the service it could also be worth encouraging regular ‘refresher’ training.

There are a variety of systems used across the organisation to manage contacts and associated service requests/responses. This makes it difficult to demonstrate assurance in terms of compliance with the Customer Charter council-wide or by each individual member of staff.

The charter outlines the council’s aims and expectations as well as stating how and what will be measured to ensure compliance. It sets customer service standards that are applicable across services and to each council officer.

The group agreed overall with the aims and objectives of the charter and considered that, because the customer service charter was a document for customers it should be easy to understand and as user-friendly as possible. It was discussed that the Charter could include a keyword summary such as “Listen, Understand, Respond.”

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3. Review all acknowledgment emails from council inboxes to ensure a response to the customer.

4. Maximise the potential of the existing telephony technology or explore the options and costs of ‘add-ons’ or alternative systems to enhance the telephone service available to customers.

Channel Split Information - Proportion of customer contacts made by phone, online and face to face 2015 - 2020

Email contacts to the council do not always initiate a bounce-back/acknowledgment response which states response times. This issue is referred to in the Customer Charter, “acknowledge your contact within 24 hours, and provide a full response within five days - where our systems allow”.

Emails contacts to individual officers and departmental inboxes are monitored locally in terms of volumes or response times. Anecdotally it was reported that there were instances where there had been excessive delays and timescales had not been met, however no consistent problem areas were evident. Senior management were confident that the internal measures put in place ensured adherence to the Customer Charter.

The review could not draw specific conclusions about the proportion of contacts that do/don’t receive an acknowledgement email, but all Webform submissions initiate a confirmation email that states timescales for a response. In instances where an acknowledgement email is not initiated customers may not feel confident that their email has been received, and they will not have clear expectations as to when a response should be expected. These factors combined could lead to duplication of work for both the organisation and for the customer who may ‘chase’ a response unnecessarily.

The two areas for potential improvement suggested were:

a) Ensure voicemail on every extension and/or put into place an option to return to main menu if a call to a department or individual officer is not answered by the member of staff or voicemail.

b) Option to request a call back after a period of time spent queuing.

The Group embraced the corporate preference for increasing online contacts, but also recognised that phone contact continued to be the main method members of the public use to contact the council (see chart below). Members all agreed that the service offered by CSOs once calls were answered was excellent.

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Members reportedly experienced some inconsistencies when contacting the council by phone, such as ambitious estimates relating to call wait times and calls transferred to lines with no voicemail facility enabled. It was also felt that over an 18 month period the issues experienced when contacting the council by phone remained largely the same.

Contacting an officer via a known extension number was usually easier. However this function did not always work as it should and members of the public would not generally have access to extension numbers.

The Group acknowledged that call wait times experienced were not always reflected in the statistics received. However the issues reported were likely to also be experienced by members of the public and could cause an element of frustration, potentially contributing to poor levels of customer satisfaction - which was in contrast to the professionalism of the service itself.

5. Improve the reporting of customer service performance information.

Call wait times –- anecdotally this was one of the biggest issues around customer service. Mitel telephony software allows for quick, detailed reporting which could become part of performance reporting.

Complaints by subject – complaints make up a very small proportion of overall cases and performance timescales are well monitored with excellent compliance rates. It could be useful to provide some narrative information about what complaints are about.

Webforms – it could be beneficial to report on the types and volumes of webforms submitted to the council. Also the proportional split of webforms submitted via customer accounts and by CCST.

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6. Review the range, content and format of webforms currently available, to ensure that they are suitable for use by the customer.

8. Develop Councillor accounts/access via the Hub to provide a specific method of contact and facilitating Councillor’s acting on behalf of residents.

Harrogate Borough Council 2020 Written on behalf of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission

The Group investigated the content of a cross-section of webforms. Whilst overall it was felt the forms were intuitive and clear, some errors and inconsistencies were found. There was also questions raised about the potential exposure to misuse in some cases with no email verification required to submit. It is therefore recommended that each responsible service undertakes a review of the webforms currently available to ensure suitability to the customer.

This process could also identify areas where webforms were not appropriate or could be introduced and/or developed.

7. As part of any future

re-design to the corporate website consultation should be undertaken with a working group of Councillors.

Councillors recognised the corporate website was award-winning and were informed that there was not a planned re-design in the near future. Information was not available that illustrated how customers interact with the website generally and the Group did have some suggestions for small improvements. This included consideration of ease of access for customers to the language translation option that could be more prominently positioned on the homepage.

The recommendation is therefore that a working group of Councillors are involved as part of the initial discussions ahead of any major amendments to the HBC website, this is so their suggestions can be considered and the limitations/technical practicalities discussed.

The review highlighted that in some cases Councillors were completing webforms on behalf of residents, but there were associated issues. Discussions with the service indicated that the development of specific Councillor accounts could be a beneficial improvement and that it would be relatively straight-forward to develop them.

This recommendation, if implemented, should make it easier for Councillors to contact the council generally, as well to act on behalf of vulnerable residents - escalating issues where appropriate. Responses and timescales would be recorded in one place so there would be accountability on both sides.

Members of the Group indicated they were happy to be involved in developing and testing Councillor accounts with the Firmstep development team.

overview and scrutiny commission customer services review · 2020-07-24 · customer services was...

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