Update on Findings for the Customers First Scrutiny Review Group

AGENDA ITEM 6

BOROUGH OF POOLE

COUNCIL EFFICIENCY & EFFECTIVENESS OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

3rd SEPTEMBER 2009

UPDATE ON FINDINGS FOR THE CUSTOMERS FIRST SCRUTINY REVIEW GROUP: CHRIS OWENS, SERVICE UNIT HEAD

1. PURPOSE

1.1To update on the recommendations made by the Customers First Scrutiny Group (report of 15th January 2009) and progress on the new corporate Customers First Programme.

2. BACKGROUND

2.1Insert the rough date when this happened – mid-2008?. In mid-2008, the Council Efficiency & Effectiveness Overview & Scrutiny Committee established a Scrutiny Review Group to consider whether the implementation of Customers First ‘Stage 1’ had met the Council’s intentions. Councillors Mrs Dion (chair), Brown and Ms Haines were appointed to the Review Group.

2.2Their findings and recommendations were reported to and approved by this committee on 15 January 2009. The report was then reviewed by the Cabinet on 14 April 2009. The report’s recommendations were built into the detailed plans for the new Customers First Programme which were being developed at that time and the “business as usual” work in the Customer Services and Communications Unit.

2.3Subsequent discussions were held between Chris Owens, Head of Customer Services & Communications, with Cllrs Mrs Dion and Ms Haines in May to clarify the Committee’s findings, progress to date and the emerging plans for the Customers First Programme. It was agreed that an update should then be provided to the Committee in September.

1. CUSTOMERS FIRST PROGRAMME

3.1The Customers First project (‘Stage 1’) led to the establishment of the Customer Services Centre and the Customer Services & Communications Unit in 2006.

3.2In September 2007 the Cabinet took stock of the implementation of Stage 1. It also began to look forward and to consider how further benefits could be realised from the investment made. Following Cabinet’s decision in September 2007, detailed research and development was undertaken to design a business case for what was then referred to as ‘Stage 2’.

3.3This development was undertaken under the guidance of a Programme Board, including Cllrs Ms Atkinson, Sorton & Meachin. The programme team engaged all relevant Strategic Directors, Heads of Service, managers, staff and trades unions in designing the key elements in the business case (vision, objectives, principles, costs and benefits).

3.4This led to definition of a much more wide ranging transformation of customer service within the Council’s overall Business Transformation programme. The Customers First Board confirmed two key drivers for this business case:

1. To improve the quality and consistency of our customers’ experience, wherever and whenever they deal with the Council. In particular, the Board wants to extend the improvements and benefits seen in the Stage 1 work to all services, starting with those that support the more vulnerable members of the community;

ii.To improve the efficiency and value for money achieved by the Council, utilising the existing infrastructure and experience gained from its previous investment in Stage 1. This will help the Council cope with increasing public demands and changes to our services, as cost effectively as possible.

3.5Following sign-off by the Customers First Board in February 2009, Cabinet approved the business case on 2nd June 2009.

3.6The new Customers First programme comprises 10 projects through to March 2011 (see appendix), most of which are now underway. These will lead (among many other changes) to further expansion of services within the Customer Services Centre in 2010 and 2011.

3.7The Scrutiny Review Team’s findings and recommendations have therefore been considered in the context of this wider planned work and updates on each of the listed recommendations are provided below.

3.8Continuous improvement work has also been undertaken since the Customer Services Centre first opened in 2006 and in response to an Internal Audit review in 2008. This has resulted in significant changes and improvements in many areas since the original review by the Scrutiny Team

1. UPDATE ON RECOMMENDATIONS

4.1“Customer Services be requested to look at ways to better publicise their contact number”.

4.1.1The Council currently maintains a multi-number contact strategy to enable calls to be routed to officers skills / trained in the appropriate subject. Customers can still contact the Switchboard if they wish, but this requires all calls to then be handed-off, adding delay and cost for both the customer and Council. Switchboard usage has also been steadily declining in popularity in recent years.

4.1.2All numbers supported by the Customer Services Centre (CSC) are published in the A-Z Guide of Council Services, which is distributed to every Poole household and which is the most actively used Council publication.

4.1.3Extra copies are also provided in key offices (eg. libraries) and are available for download from the website. In addition, key numbers are published annually in selected external directories (eg. BT Phone Book and Yellow Pages), including their online variants.

4.1.4Customer research shows that these sources account for the vast majority of contacts to the CSC and the latest survey showed 89% satisfaction with the ease of finding the correct number.

4.1.5The Customers First Programme will investigate the future possibility of using targeted Interactive Voice Response technology to potentially improve the customer experience and further reduce costs – eg. automated voice response (not ‘press 1 for this, 2 for that’) for ‘out of hours’ calls.

4.2“Customer Services be recommended to make the Borough website more user friendly, particularly with regard to the ‘word association’ search”.

4.2.1The website is subject to continual development and change to content, with particular emphasis recently on accessibility and navigation. Information can now be readily be found by a variety of means (in order of popularity):

• Search engines such as Google (eg. by typing key phrases such as ‘Poole Councillors' or ‘Poole Bins’)
• ‘A-Z’ drop-down listings at the top of everypage
• Selecting regularly used pages as'favourites'in the user’s browser
• ‘Directory’ list on the homepage
• Category / page links provided on related content pages
• ‘Your Poole’ mapping function, using a property post code
• ‘Search’ facility, although this tends to default to News items in preference to content, which is a known limitation of the current system

4.2.2Major accessibility enhancements also now allow users to quickly and easily change text size and colour contrast, have the content translated into a variety of different languages or to be read out to them automatically.

4.2.3Whilst having won a national award in 2008 and consistently rating among the best Council websites in the country through formal customer benchmarking, we plan to make further significant improvements over the next two years.

4.2.4This recognises ever-growing demands and usage, plus the Councils’ own Business Transformation agenda and need to drive greater cost efficiency. Our website already accounts for an estimated 80% of all contact with the Council and nearly 1 in 5 service requests received by Customer Services.

4.2.5The website content management system is also due to be reviewed / re-tendered in 2010. This may allow adoption of improved new technology to drive major changes in the ‘look and feel’, navigation, quality / accuracy of content and the range of functions available online, as well as reducing costs.

4.3“Financial Services be requested to prepare an evaluation of project performance to include performance against original capital and review budget and delivery of overall financial benefits including any identified efficiency”.

4.3.1The original project business case was focused on customer service improvement and not the achievement of financial savings. Cabinet approved the successful delivery of the project objectives in September 2007 and subsequently initiated the establishment of the Customers First Programme.

4.3.2Having delivered within budget, the surplus capital from the project was allocated towards the new Programme, which is now targeting tangible financial savings, as well as further service improvements. The Programme Board and Cabinet do not therefore believe that a retrospective financial review is necessary or would add further value.

4.3.3Numerous process and quality improvements have been made to individual services and to common / shared functions (eg. road flooding, tree enquiries, etc), to drive out unnecessary / avoidable contacts and to actively promote channel shift to the website.

4.3.4As a result, inbound telephone and email contact volumes have consistently fallen by around 10% pa, enabling continually improved customer service, operational performance and cost efficiency.

4.4“Customer Services be requested to update their estimated figures in relation to anticipated calls / service requests and emails”.

4.4.1Forecasts are now regularly reviewed and are dynamically updated throughout the year based on discussions with Service Units, planned new developments, prevailing trends / issues, etc.

4.4.2Now that the CSC has been operating for three years, clear seasonal, monthly, weekly and daily trends have been established for all currently supported services. We have also recently reinvested some efficiency savings in greater hours for our critical Resource Analyst role.

4.4.3Staff rotas and lunch-time arrangements have recently been redesigned to recognise changes in these trends over time (eg. lower call volumes after 5pm) and to better match our availability of advisers with expected demand.

4.4.4However, forecasting can only ever provide a general guide, as customers are free to contact us whenever they wish. Call volumes are also highly susceptible to factors such as the new government regulations, changes to services offered, service delivery problems (most notably for bin rounds), local / national news, bulk mailings (eg. for Council Tax arrears) and the weather.

4.4.5To help mitigate this variability, Customer Services continually analyse processes and identify improvements for review with Service Units in regular partnership meetings. Adviser performance is also monitored and feedback enables us to adjust training, scripts and web content.

4.4.6We are also driving the Council’s focus on National Indicator14 (‘avoidable contact’) to reduce the need for customers to contact us unnecessarily. This is encouraging Service Units to improve web content, overhaul some standard letters, provide greater clarify on expected response times, etc.

4.4.7Allied with active development and promotion of online facilities (now accounting for an estimated 80% of all contacts and 16% of service requests), this activity is leading an approximate 10% fall in year-on-year telephone contact volumes. This is turn is helping to improve call answer rates and speed of answering, as well as delivering a better customer experience.

4.5“Customer Services be requested to investigate whether there is a role for them to play in coordinating the Council’s ‘Out of Hours’ phone services”.

4.5.1As part of the new Customers First programme, the current ‘out of hours’ helpline will be migrated onto the Lagan Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system in 2010. This will replace the current inefficient manual system (which relies on paper being faxed around the Council), enabling faster and more efficient transmission of service requests, plus improved tracking.

4.5.2Although still within scope for the programme to consider in due course, the potential extension of the CSC’s existing opening hours does not form part of the currently agreed portfolio of projects.

4.5.3Low call volumes outside of core Council opening hours (accounting for just 5% of total calls received) also indicate a weak business case for what would be a very costly development. Furthermore, some other local Councils have recently reduced their night availability for the same reason. For example, Dorset Direct used to open until 8pm on weekdays, but now closes at 6pm.

4.6“Customer Services be requested to provide evidence on actual improvements to the Council services that they are now supporting, above and beyond improvements to call answering rates”.

4.6.1Numerous improvements have been made to date, among which are:

• Availability of Library Services – by taking calls from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, Customer Services have added an effective 67% to weekday library availability by phone. Advisers can reserve or renew items, book PC sessions, etc, even if the supported library is closed at that time. In turn, when our operation closes, calls are automatically routed to any open libraries (eg. Central or Broadstone on late evenings and Saturdays).

• Handling of Cross-Unit Queries – some services (eg. tree or flooding enquiries) can involve up to 5 different Service Units, depending on the exact nature of the query / issue. We have gradually aligned processes and scripts and eliminated duplication / blurred boundaries between Service Units (eg. for management of dog waste bins) so that customers can hopefully now get the response they need quickly and simply, no matter which function they initially contact. Ratings through Poole Opinion Panel of the consistency of contact (up 6% to 45%), ease of getting enquiries sorted (up 9% to 65%), first touch resolution (up 9% to 45%), etc, have all risen consistently from the 2004 baseline.

• Annual Council Tax Billing – traditionally, the Council received a huge volume of calls immediately following issue of the annual bills in March / April, many of which it was unable to answer, causing stress for both customers and officers. Working with Financial Services, the main causes of queries were analysed in late 2007 and major changes were made to web content and the annual leaflet to address frequently asked questions in much clearer terms. As a result, peak call volumes fell by 21% in 2008 and dropped again in 2009, with a much improved customer experience.

• Poole Adult Learning (PAL) Brochure – a similar outcome resulted from a major rewrite of the 2008 PAL brochure with Culture & Community Learning, with no complaints arising that year due to contact delays, for the first time ever. Additional improvements were made in consultation with the Service Unit to the joint brochure with Bournemouth in 2009, resulting in a much smoother flow of contacts throughout July.

• 2008 Unison Strike – industrial action last August caused considerable disruption to many services, including the CSC. However, through intra-day monitoring, active maintenance of a dedicated web page, proactive advisory messages played to all callers and liaison with the local media, we were able to relay the latest information and guidance to our customers. Although it took over three weeks to fully restore some services and contact management was badly affected throughout the month, this action helped to substantially reduce the contact volumes and complaints that would otherwise have resulted.

4.6.2The planned upgrade to our CRM system in early 2010 (enhancing Service Unit workflow management capability) and the end-end service delivery focus now within the new Customers First programme should enable even more active service improvement in future.

4.7“The Council Efficiency and Effectiveness Overview and Scrutiny Committee supports and welcomes the areas that have already been identified by Customers First as requiring further improvement (as detailed in Section 5 of the report)”.

4.7.1As previously mentioned, Customer Services continually monitors, analyses and seeks to improve processes, procedures and service delivery in partnership with supported Service Units. The team has won several national awards / commendations over the last two years for its overall performance, the website and its approaches to training and customer satisfaction research.

4.7.2In addition, the Customers First project was commended as a runner-up in the 2008 E-Government Awards. However, there are clearly still opportunities for further improvement in performance, efficiency, customer satisfaction and reduction of avoidable contact.

4.7.3To help maximise the return on investment in the sophisticated infrastructure now being used and to prepare for further services coming across to the CSC, we have also recently initiated the ‘Enhance and Expand’ project within Customers First.

4.7.4It is expected that the operational structure, management information and day-day management of resources within Customer Services will change considerably as a result of this project, which is benchmarked against industry best practice. This should lead to delivery of significantly improved call answering performance over the next year and enable capture of greater efficiency savings from the consolidation of other services in 2010 and 2011.

4.8“Customer Services be requested to seek ways in which they can raise their profile in terms of their value within other departments”.

4.8.1In addition to formal partnership meetings with the management and key officers of each supported Service Unit, Customer Services maintains:

• Daily Contact – with key officers in all supported Service Units throughout the day to ensure both parties are fully aware of any operational issues or temporary changes to procedures.

• Performance Log – a register of any issues / problems arising with cases completed by Service Units, which is formally analysed to improve adviser training, scripts, web content and processes.

• Service Champions – senior advisers now act as a lead contact with particular Service Units at an operational level, supplementing the existing managerial relationships.

• Partnership Visits – regular visits to the CSC are now hosted to help members, officers and other Councils to see how we operate. In recent months, this has included all librarians, the Transportation management team and most Planning Officers. In turn, our own advisers spend time with Service Unit teams as part of their initial / regular refresher training.

• Service Unit Meetings – we now periodically attend Unit Management team meetings or ‘away days’ to foster improved awareness and joint working, as done recently for Planning & Regeneration Services.

• Change Control - a formalised process to assess, prioritise (across all Units) and implement changes to existing procedures, adviser scripts and service information (inc. web pages) in a controlled and effective manner.

• Customers First Governance – a key change currently being implemented is the introduction of the ‘Performance and Quality Sub-Board’. This new forum now involves Service Heads from all supported units to review end-end service performance and planned changes to services in support of the Customers First vision.

4.8.2With additional services due to be supported from early next year, Customer Services are now reviewing the best ways of working for the future as part of the ‘Enhance and Expand’ project (see appendix). This may lead to some refinement and changes to the existing arrangements shown above.