Issue - meetings

The Customer Experience Officer introduced the Voice of the Customer report for consideration by the Committee. She explained that it was an annual report covering all aspects of customer feedback including satisfaction levels, rather than focussing on complaint information, and also sought to identify drivers for improvement across the council. For those who were not aware of recent changes to the customer complaints process, this was explained and highlighted that the report being presented was the first full year’s worth of data.

Members were informed that the collected data regarding comments, compliments and complaints had been more clearly categorised with the aim of making it easier to identify trends. It was highlighted that the number of compliments and comments had increased and the number of complaints had decreased. The Customer Experience Officer also explained that the percentage of upheld complaints had decreased. She detailed how the data was broken down per service area with a comparison to the previous year’s data. This was with the exception of waste services and street cleansing which had previously been categorised together but had now been separated.

The final point highlighted for Members was regarding learning outcomes and improvement actions which had arisen as a result of feedback received or the outcome of complaint investigations. The Committee was told about several changes that had been implemented in the ground floor Customer Services area as a result of customer feedback or complaint outcomes.

Committee Members expressed their thanks to the Customer Experience Officer and noted the positive changes that had been implemented. There was discussion regarding certain areas of the report such as the average number of days to respond and specific service complaints. The Committee heard that the average number of days to respond had increased, however, the context of this was against a previous three stage complaint process where each team dealt with their own complaints rather than the current process with one Officer, independent of the team, investigating from start to finish. It was also noted that the average response time of 7.3 days was well below the target of 21 days. Where there had been an unexpected increase in complaints, for example for Arts and Leisure, it was explained that this tended to be where there had been service changes implemented which had not been welcomed by all existing customers. It was highlighted that for the same service area there had been compliments and comments in favour of the changes and the overall feedback had been positive.

There was further discussion regarding communication access routes for customers, such as online, telephone or face to face and it was confirmed that there was ongoing improvement work for both online and telephone services but that customers would always be able to choose their preferred way of contacting the authority.

The Chairman thanked the Customer Experience Officer for the detailed report and it was

            RESOLVED that the Annual Voice of the Customer Report be noted.