Issue - meetings

Report CSD16087

Members considered Liberata’s performance for the Customer Service Contract during the period 1^st December 2015 to 31^st May 2016.

An increase in call volumes in April and May 2016 was mainly due to the GLA Election and EU referendum. This had impacted service level (SL) performance but the position had now recovered although performance just following the referendum was down. Liberata had provided more resource to deal with call volumes in April, May and June.

To help prevent customer calls being abandoned a voicemail message was suggested to indicate when a call might be answered (wait time software). Current arrangements advised a caller that he/she was held in a queue with details of alternative communication routes also provided.

Concerning Reception and Contact Centre customers, Liberata had under achieved (apart from January 2016) in attaining a Customer Satisfaction target of less than 10% dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Change to the structure of the customer satisfaction survey was suggested to determine where there is continuing dissatisfaction and Liberata can better account for their performance. A fewer number of survey questions was also suggested.

Members were advised  that the survey had been re-built in recent months and the questions changed. The new survey was currently being tested and following subsequent review and any further changes, it was expected to be available within the next four to six weeks.

It was thought helpful to explore which future events might potentially cause an increase in customer contact; an appropriate quantity and level of staff could then be deployed to meet demand. It might not be possible to factor in unforeseen occurrences or other activity e.g. extending the electoral registration deadline for the Referendum vote, but calls could be re-directed to the Council website during high call volumes and website improvements could be made to highlight issues e.g. publicising roads where it has not been possible to complete a collection round. 

A steady growth of forms had been completed online with a growing number completed by MyBromley account holders. Although there were now over 25,000 MyBromleyactive users, it was suggested that residents tended to use their account just once for a specific purpose and it was necessary to encourage residents to make more use of their account. To this end it was necessary to consider making an increased number of mandatory services accessible via the account;  services not currently available on the web were more complex ones e.g. certain social care services and officers were looking to address this through the MyLife portal and linking the two sites further. 

RESOLVED that the report and appended Liberata letter be noted.