11 October - The Customer Service Experience in Bexley. It needs to improve
It’s
three months since the last Finance Scrutiny meeting and Chairman Ahmet Dourmoush
began this week’s one with “We have no Members of the Public so that helps”
which from a usually friendly Chairman must have been no more that an
off-the-cuff remark but one must wonder how it helps, if indeed it does, However he soon got
the meeting underway in his usual efficient manner.
The first discussion was on
the Customer
Service Experience which had been previously
noted as not
being very good and Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) had some questions.
He was concerned that a lot of money was being spent with Price Waterhouse
Coopers (now known as PwC) on the project and more generally, with catering for the hard of
hearing, elderly and disabled. Were the reducing number of complaints due to it
being made so difficulty to make them? (To which I might add
answering
them in a dishonest way and causing complaints to be abandoned as being
hopeless in the face of managers prepared to say black is white.)
There was an acceptance that the response rate (664) was “disappointing” but not
entirely unexpected, but PwC has “huge expertise” and the “skills and talent” is
not available within the Council. They give “value for money”.
Whilst Children’s Services complaints are relatively few in number a high
proportion go through to Stage 3 which presumably
confirms the uselessness of the management so frequently reported to BiB by
dissatisfied parents.
Labour Leader Stefano Borella was unhappy that the Front Door to the Contact Centre was not very accessible
or visible and in similar vein the number of abandoned telephone calls is far too high and getting worse.
Residents become “unnecessarily annoyed” because their complaints are not handled
in a timely manner. “The statistics are poor. The target is 95% answered on time
and the actual score is zero.” The Chairman had some sympathy with Stefano’s concerns.
The responsible officer said the abandoned calls statistic is in fact improving
and the dashboard figure that Stefano referenced was some sort of statistical
freak and the 25% abandoned figure was actually under 10. (Should poor management be mentioned again?)
Average telephone answering times were down to about 90 seconds. (As I have said before,
the first GPO telephone exchange I managed had a target of five seconds to answer and missing it meant big trouble.)
There are plans to improve access to the Contact Centre by next March and make
it more welcoming and the number of staff chasing complaints will increase from three to five.
Deputy Leader Councillor David Leaf reminded his colleagues that he is always
ready to help them with complaint cases if they feel it would be beneficial to residents.
Councillor Howard Jackson (Conservative, Barnehurst) said residents were often unhappy with the way
Fix-my-Street works. The Council officer said he was aware of the
problems with the interface to Council systems and they have been addressed and ready to be switched on.
Tests will be held jointly with residents within the next couple of months
to ensure that everyone is happy with the changes.
There is currently a lot of investment being made in new technology including Microsoft CoPilot, Microsoft Dynamics, new mobile devices, i-pads and
Ask Bexley.
Additionally trials are being undertaken to produce meeting Minutes via Artificial Intelligence
but Bexley Council will watch a handful of other LAs go first as there are potential difficulties.
Missed bin reports which currently cause 150 to 200 phone calls a day might well
be handled by AI before too long.