15 February (Part 2) - Customer Experience
Bexley Council has been reviewing its ‘Customer Experience’ and Councillor
Andrew Curtois (Conservative, Falconwood & Welling) chaired a sub-Group.
Cabinet Member David Leaf thanked him for his work on it and spoke about a
recently closed survey on the subject which has consulted with “stakeholders” including Age Concern and the deaf community.
Councillor Nick O’Hare (Conservative, Blendon & Penhill) said there was still work to be done to improve telephone
contact. “The average wait may be only 84 seconds (†) but waits of six or seven minutes
and cut-offs are not uncommon. Then callers are directed to voice mail inboxes which are full.”
Councillor Larry Ferguson (Labour, Thamesmead East) asked if Bexley’s FixMyStreet system could be linked with Peabody’s (which
has a quasi town council role in Thamesmead) as residents in his ward are not
able to easily check whether the Council or the Housing Association is
responsible for a particular problem. The Council Officer said she would look into the possibility
but Chairman Steven Hall didn’t think Peabody was a participant in FixMyStreet.
Cabinet Member Leaf confirmed there was a third party problem with FixMyStreet and manhole covers etc. being reported to the Council which are a utility company responsibility.
However Council staff do pass them on to their contacts within those companies.
† 84 seconds average and they are relatively happy! When I was manager of what was in effect a huge Contact
Centre I would be compelled to write a report for the top brass if either my
night or day average waiting times (measured separately) exceeded five seconds.
The Places Scrutiny meeting, from which the foregoing is extracted, is chaired
by Steven Hall (East Wickham). It was Steven who Mick
Barnbrook came within eight votes of beating in a Welling by-election and he
was first off the block to send the most gracious tribute to Mick Barnbrook and
the good political banter that they enjoyed together. Thank you Steven. I will
pass your message on to Sharon Barnbrook.