By Anna Whittaker, Local Democracy Reporter
There are hopes a review of a council’s customer services will improve the long-criticised system – but a councillor said there must be closer management of those working from home.
Councillors at Broxtowe Borough Council have criticised the authority’s customer services in the past.
A scathing assessment was previously made by Councillor Philip Owen (Con) on the phone system, one of the most common issues raised by residents, calling it an “abysmal failure”.
A review of ‘Telephone Answering and Customer Services’ was published this month and was discussed by Broxtowe Borough Council at its meeting on October 19.
Cllr Owen, who chaired the review, said: “This week alone I have made three calls and left messages for three different officers, one out of the three have got back to me.
“That is simply not good enough.
“A system is only as good as the people prepared to operate it, and it’s a mixed bag across the authority.
“It seemed strange that there was not the level of monitoring by senior managers of the times that officers answered the calls.
“That needs to change, there needs to be much greater management oversight of what operators are doing.
“This ties in with working from home where there has got to be much closer monitoring by managers.
“If there is a pattern of not answering, that needs to be tackled fairly urgently and questions need to be asked.
“To my mind, there is nothing more infuriating than the message you get at the moment which says ‘we are extremely busy feeling with other calls’.”
The authority’s target is that calls are answered within six rings – or 20 seconds.
The review put forward five recommendations, including that temporary staff are used during peak call times.
It also recommended officers should only use answer phone messages if they are away for no more than 24 hours and messages should be replied to the following working day.
When asked if the review’s recommendations will improve the system, Cllr Owen responded: “I’m hoping so, but at the end of the day it comes down to whether the staff answer the phones or not, and the level of management oversight which clearly has been insufficient.”
The review found that the service was “improving” in the first three months of the year due to a greater presence of Customer Services Officers within the Council building.
“It was positive that there had been improving levels of call answering but a
fluctuation caused further concern”, the review stated.
There were some concerns raised over the call abandonment rate though, where the customer hangs up before they speak to an agent.
Councillor Marie Hannah (Lab), vice chair of the review, said: “I want to say thank you to the officers, it was a very open and honest conversation about some of the challenges you face in the department.
“There was a view in the group that we were there to help.”
Three other councillors and three council officers also contributed to the review.
