Agenda item

The Head of the City Mayor’s Office and Customer Support Transformation submits a report to give an overview of the current Customer Service offer provided by the Council.

The Committee is asked to note the information provided in this report and the accompanying presentation, and to make any recommendations regarding the customer services offer at the Council for consideration by the Deputy City Mayor for Housing and Communities.

The Head of the City Mayor’s Office and Customer Support Transformation submitted a report that gave an overview of the current customer services offer provided by the Council.

The Deputy City Mayor for Housing and Neighbourhoods provided an initial introduction and stated that the challenges faced by this service were far from exclusive to Leicester City Council.  It was noted that there was currently a very high demand placed upon customer services, with incoming phone calls generally becoming more complex and time-consuming.  A major aim for the service was to provide more services online for the digitally able, which in turn would allow greater capacity for staff to support those who were vulnerable and more digitally unable.  She also referred to challenges relating to ensuring that the appropriate IT systems to support customer services platforms were in place and in relation to staff recruitment and retention.  The Deputy City Mayor stated that she was pleased that the issues faced were being tackled appropriately. 

The Head of the City Mayor’s Office and Customer Support Transformation provided a detailed presentation to the committee.  The presentation covered a number of key issues including:

-       National Industry Trends

-       Current delivery models and a summary of the services provided

-       A snapshot of overall performance
Detail of service transformation and change work.

As part of his presentation, the Head of the City Mayor’s Office and Customer Support Transformation spoke of the value in the committee contributing to future service improvements and invited the committee to undertake a tour of the Granby Street Customer Services centre.  A copy of the full presentation is attached to this set of minutes. 

In response to comments and questions raised by commission members, the following points were made:

-       Customer call abandonment was not viewed particularly negatively by the service as it demonstrated that people were willing to access contact through other means. 

-       Regarding the social care switchboard, this line was not managed directly by the customer services team, though if calls were passed to the duty desk, customers would be immediately transferred to case workers.  In response to further points made around ASC calls, the Head of the City Mayor’s Office and Customer Support Transformation stated that he would examine further the operation of the telephony queuing system and would confirm whether there had been any experience of call drop-off. 

-       There was an acknowledgement of the frustration in receiving calls from generic numbers, thus making it difficult for recipients (including elected members) to be aware of the origin of calls.  The provision of some general messaging around this was welcomed. 

-       It was noted that the Deputy City Mayor for Housing and Neighbourhoods and the Assistant Mayor for Education, Libraries and Community Centres were to undertake a piece of work that would ensure there was a consistent approach in the delivery of all customer services and would allow libraries to be seen as places where people could go to for customer service solutions. 

-       The Deputy for Mayor for Housing and Neighbourhood Services encouraged members to report any particularly problematic cases presented to them by residents accessing customer services.

-       Greater consideration would be given to developing an improved virtual queuing system. 

-       It was vital that the service developed a stronger vision for the delivery of its services, and that this took into consideration the varying needs of Leicester’s many different communities. 

-       Further information that set out trends against comparator authorities could be provided to members. 

-       A full equality impact assessment would be carried out if significant changes to the Council’s customer services were proposed. 

-       The presentation did not focus on the staffing structure, the current level of vacancies or the budget attributed to the service.  The Head of the City Mayor’s Office and Customer Support Transformation would consider how this information could be provided to members. 

-       It was acknowledged that staff sickness and absence inevitably had a major impact on service performance, though there was not a generally poor level of performance across the service. 

-       In respect of terminology, some members felt that greater reference should be made to ‘residents’ rather than ‘customers’.

AGREED:

(1)  That the report and presentation be noted,

(2)  That the comments of the committee be taken into consideration,

(3)  That responses be provided to members following several information requests outlined above; and

(4)  That consideration be given to inviting members to a tour of the Granby Street Customer Services centre.