Workstream 1: standardise first-line customer services across the council

There are several teams across the council running first-point-of-contact services using a combination of post, phone, and email. Standards of service, service level agreements and overall performance varies between these services, which can lead to confusion among some residents. At the same time, we know that some of the contact that teams get comes from residents chasing enquiries they have already made, or requesting information that does not require specialised staff to provide. 

In this workstream we propose to standardise our non-specialist services across the council. These are mainly paper, telephone and email-based contact.

We will do this by: 

  • reviewing and re-publishing the overall customer services standards which already exist on our website. These are out of date and do not reflect our current performance
  • working across the council to understand the current set of standards and service levels offered between different services, then working to match them so that residents receive a consistent service regardless of how they reach us
  • review our shared telephone numbers and voicemail, making sure that residents have clear and simple access to services, particularly for high-risk or high-vulnerability services. We will use our new telephony system to make sure that shared phone numbers or email addresses are used consistently

This activity supports, and will be assisted by the detailed Customer Service Standards Review Report published by the Corporate Finance and Performance Panel in July 2021. 

In some areas, we may bring these first-line services, including directing residents to the right service, responding to queries and undertaking transactions, into the customer services team. 

This can be scaled up as and when needed, responding to resident queries in a timely and consistent way. This will improve performance and customer experience as well as relieving pressure on teams working on more complex cases and issues. 

Some specialist services will be exempt from this process - most notably our telecare services, which effectively operates as an emergency service and cannot be matched under this plan.