Issue - meetings

The Lead Councillor for Engagement and Customer Services introduced the item.  She highlighted the important and timely service that the Council’s customer services team provided to residents.  The Joint Executive Head of Communications and Customer Service indicated that the report submitted to the Committee showed continued improvement in customer service.

A Councillor praised the progress maintained by the customer services team.

RESOLVED:  That subsequent performance updates on the Council’s customer services be provided to Committee members by email.

The Lead Councillor for Engagement and Customer Services introduced the item, highlighting the progress achieved by the Council’s Customer Services since the previous update to the Committee in October 2022.  The Lead Councillor for Engagement and Customer Services advised the meeting of the growth in the number of residents registered to use the MyGuildford portal, the accessibility of the Council’s website, and the staffing levels within the Customer Service team.  The Committee members were advised to use the councillor email address for customer service queries.

A member of the Committee suggested improving the communication with residents contacting the Council, especially those with inquiries relating to planning applications.  The Joint Executive Head of Communication and Customer Service undertook to circulate the councillor email address after the meeting to ensure matters raised through Councillors were progressed.

A member of the Committee praised the reduction in call wait times and the increase in the percentage of calls answered shown within Appendix 1 of the report submitted to the Committee.  In addition, the call back process was commended by the Committee member.  The Joint Executive Head of Communication and Customer Service advised that the percentage of calls answered the previous week was 93%.  She stated that the call back function was still deployed by customer services but not as often as previously.

In reply to questions from a Councillor, the Joint Executive Head of Communication and Customer Service confirmed arrangements for reporting common issues raised by residents to the relevant services and indicated that the three top issues raised by residents were Council Tax, refuse and recycling collections, and planning. 

The Chair thanked the Lead Councillor for Engagement and Customer Service and the Joint Executive Head of Communication and Customer Service for attending.

RESOLVED:  That a further performance update report on Customer Services be provided to the Committee in six months’ time. 

The Lead Councillor for Economy introduced the item.  He praised the progress of both the customer service team and the internet team and requested that Councillors share complaints with him. 

• A member of the Committee questioned whether there was sufficient focus within the Council’s customer services on the residents that were unable to use online platforms, particularly those trying to access services by telephone.  In response, the Lead Councillor for Economy indicated that encouraging use of online services would free-up the phone service for those that were unable to use the internet and stated his confidence in the need and success of such an approach.  The Strategic Director of Transformation and Governance stated that the aim was to move seventy-five percent of customer contacts online and that over 47,000 residents had signed up to a MyGuildford account.  The Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services indicated that approximately eighty-five percent of residents contacting the Council’s customer services had an online MyGuildford account.

• The Lead Councillor for Economy confirmed that the target operating model of customer contact – 75 percent of customer transactions undertaken online, 20 percent via telephone, and 5 percent face to face – came from the Future Guildford transformation programme.  The Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services offered to share the customer service strategy with Committee members.

• In response to a question, the Lead Councillor for Economy suggested that automated service chatbots could help meet customer needs 24/7.  He confirmed that additional investment would be required to deliver such improvements.

• With reference to the report submitted to the Committee, a member of the Committee queried how often the two-day average response time for online enquiries was met. 

• The Lead Councillor for Economy stated that those people waiting on the Council’s customer service phone line for ten minutes were offered a call back; the Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services confirmed that the goal was to lower the ten-minute waiting period.

• In response to a request from Committee members, the Lead Councillor for Economy and the Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services undertook to provide the October contact statistics for customer services. 

• The Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services referred to the Council’s customer insight testing and requested that Councillors share customer feedback.

• A member of the Committee suggested publishing the quietest times of day for customers to contact customer services.  In response, the Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services indicated that doing so risked increasing call volumes and that there was seldom a time of day when people were not phoning customer services. 

• A member of the Committee referred to a KPMG internal audit report, considered by the Council’s Corporate Governance and Standards Committee, which had reviewed the Council’s customer complaints handling.  He stated that the audit had recommended the establishment of a central complaints team within the customer services team and the reporting of performance indicators for complaints handling.  The Committee member asked if there was sufficient resource  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22