Agenda item

At the meeting the Group will consider corporate and historic data, along with MyAccount responses that will provide evidence of satisfaction levels and a snapshot of complaints.

The Group received information relating to customer satisfaction levels. Prior to 1 April 2012 only customers telephoning the contact centre were surveyed and satisfaction levels were consistently over 93%. Customers were asked about their experience with the Contact Centre which did not really reflect the way the service request was handled overall and a more corporate approach was therefore adopted.

This new way of measuring satisfaction has been undertaken since April 2012 and the Council saw a reduction in levels. These levels have started to gradually increase over time and at the end of September 2015, the % of customers satisfied with the way they were treated by the Council was at 77.7%. The current survey asks respondents. ‘What do you think we could have done better? Members were provided with the detailed responses from September’s survey. Where a reason for dissatisfaction was given, in 90% of cases this was because of a lack of response to or follow-up of the service request.

Service related complaints are monitored and reported to Strategy Group each month together with escalated complaints which have entered the formal complaints procedure. A total of 116 service related complaints were received in September 2015. The number of avoidable complaints is now also monitored. A complaint is considered to be avoidable where it is about a situation within the Council’s influence and the Group were provided with information of those complaints received in September 2015, with complaints identified as avoidable, 23 out of 116 (19.8%.highlighted as green. It was noted that waste complaints are monitored separately due to the impact on the Service Level Agreement in place with the contractor.

Customers using My Account are able to view information about the status of their service requests and add notes if they wish. Customer comments may be received to update or cancel a service request or to express thanks for a job done well.

The My Account system sends an email to a customer when a service request is resolved advising them that a job as been closed. Some account responses are from customers whose service request has not been completed although the job has been closed and they have received an email. In September, 33 customer responses out of 88 (37.5%) suggested that a service request had been closed although the job had not been completed and the Group discussed the reasons as to why this sometimes happens. This included service requests that were the responsibility of Lancashire County Council and measures had recently taken place to include the relevant contact numbers for the County Council in the detail updated by staff.

It was explained that a job was always reopened and reassigned upon request and monitored to ensure there was no persistent behaviour of job being closed too early by staff. If a pattern was identified, this action would be escalated to a more senior officer to deal with. Use of the My Account was still in its early infancy and use of the system would continue to be developed, reviewed and refined.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.