Minutes:
Jo Crookes, Customer Services Manager advised that she had been invited to attend this meeting to provide an answer to why the percentage of calls answered within 90 seconds was below target. She raised the following main points:
· 48% of calls received were answered within 60 seconds.
· The average call waiting time in September was 2 minutes and 49 seconds and the October statistics were very similar.
· There were currently vacancies within the Customer Services Team, it took time to train staff and for them to gain experience.
· There was a high rate of staffing changes as they often gained promotion and moved on to other areas within the Council, there had also been a number of retirements recently.
· Staff were working under very difficult circumstances and were doing the best that they could for the customers.
· The number of calls received were increasing for example last September 8308 calls were received compared to 10,645 calls received this September 2019.
· The team were also now taking Housing Solutions calls and had only 1 extra resource.
· The call length times were increasing, due to more complex calls, customers often had complex problems that took time to deal with.
· Customers were told their position in the queue and were offered a call back after 5 minutes.
· The team were frustrated as they felt that 2 minutes and 49 seconds was a reasonable amount of time for customers to wait compared to the waiting times of other companies.
· The priority was to deal with calls thoroughly rather than as quick as possible.
The committee discussed the matters raised and asked the following questions and received the relevant responses.
Question – Did the LTP have an input in setting the targets?
Response – Yes, they were consulted with.
Question – Was the target set too high?
Response – At the time it was felt that it was reasonable, however, we did not know that the number of calls would increase. For example Customer Services were now answering Elections phone calls due to the Election being called.
Question: Did the target need changing?
Response: A question about call waiting times had been included in a questionnaire to the Citizens Panel to find out how long customers thought was a reasonable time to wait for a call to be answered. Depending on the replies the target could be amended.
Question: Were calls passed to customer services when Officers were out of the office?
Response: Yes, Officers who were often out in the community diverted their calls through to Customer Services when they were away from the office.
Question: Were more staff needed?
Response: There was peak times when calls were received, if more staff were employed they would be busy during peak times but there would be quiet periods when they would have nothing to do. The team did the best job they could within the resources available.
Question: Were customers encouraged to go online?
Response: Yes we encouraged everyone who could go online and use email to do so.
Question: How long did customers have to wait for a call back?
Response: The phone system would keep the caller in the queue and call them back when it was their turn.
Question: How did tenants know that when they left a message with Customer Services for their Housing Officer that the message was being passed on?
Response: The tenant would be informed who their message had been emailed to. Generally it would not be followed up, except when a customer chased it up for not receiving a response, it would then be escalated to a Manager if necessary. Regular meetings were held between Customer Services and Tenancy Services to address any issues.
The committee discussed the system of a single point of contact for Members to raise enquiries. The Chair gave an example of where a Councillor used this system and had not received a response from the relevant Officer.
Following the meeting the Councillor concerned contacted Officers to advise that the example given at the meeting was incorrect and a swift response had been received to the enquiry.
The committee discussed the process of how targets were set. Following the meeting it was confirmed that the process for setting or changing targets was to agree with the Service Manager, Director, the Portfolio Holder and also the Lincoln Tenants Panel in this case.
RESOLVED that Jo Crookes to attend the next meeting of Housing Scrutiny Sub Committee with the responses received from the Citizens Panel questionnaire.