28 March - From Contact Centre to Chatbot
The most interesting item on the Agenda for Finance and Corporate Services
Scrutiny meeting was entitled ‘Customer Experience Strategy’. There had been a survey
which totally passed me by as it probably did you. It was conducted between 2nd
January and 7th February this year and provoked 664 responses which was regarded
as “quite poor”. Even more so if I tell you that 310 came from Council
employees. Councillor Nick O’Hare was particularly critical of so few
respondents being accepted as representative of the borough as a whole. He said
that most of the public respondents were businesses and asked about the age
profiles of those who weren’t.
Mr. Edwards, the responsible Council Officer, provided a lame response without a
single fact that can be reported here.
Cabinet Member David Leaf said that 664 was a good response.
It was said that Councils always struggle to get people to respond but “they
really valued” the opportunity to respond.
Councillor Larry Ferguson (Labour, Thamesmead East) highlighted the responses
that said the Council does not treat residents as human, the perception is that
they do nothing, and the staff are disrespectful and aggressive leading to
residents being afraid to speak to the Council.
It was said that the people who were afraid was the demographic that had been
dealing with the Home Office and saw the Council as a branch of government. The
respondents had been identified and given special treatment.
Councillor Howard Jackson (Conservative, Barnehurst) contrasted the 200,000 phone calls a
year with the million web site visits and asked about “the conversion rate
between the two”. He was certain that “a large number of answers may be found there”.
It was said that 200,000 was down 15% on the year before and website traffic is
increasing. Web chat is being considered and likely to be trialled towards the
end of the year.
It was accepted that the elderly may not have digital access - is that not true
of the poor too? - but pushing more people on line frees up resources for those with no access.
Labour Leader Stefano Borella
(Slade Green and Northend) said it is often quicker to pick up the phone than
scour a website and only 300ish residents and businesses responding to the
survey was “abysmal”. He asked why the Council didn’t use its standard contact
methods, waste subscription letters, libraries etc. to reach out to
residents and seek survey answers. With the Contact Centre a shadow of its
former self and libraries shut for half the week how do [digitally excluded]
people access planning applications etc.?
Mr. Edwards confirmed that face to face and telephone was by far the most sought
after contact method leaving Social Media well behind. Planning Applications can
be viewed on a computer within the Contact Centre and assistance is available.
Later this year telephone callers will be offered an automated satisfaction
survey when the call ends as used by many commercial organisations.
Stefano hoped that full and unmonitored email inboxes were not bouncing back too many messages.
He suggested that surveys could be conducted within the Broadway Shopping Centre
and was told that might well happen.
Councillor Peter Reader (Conservative, West Heath) was concerned for the high
number of registered disabled people and how were they being catered for. The
deaf in particular had been consulted and a meeting with them had been conducted in British Sign Language.
Councillor Brian Bishop (Conservative, Barnehurst) asked if the 200,000 phone
calls included those handled by Capita who collect the Council Tax. He was told
that Capita in effect impersonates Bexley Council when answering calls from its residents.
The specific question wasn’t answered.
Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) said he was pleased to see that the Council no longer
demands that the disabled attend in person to collect a Freedom Pass even if
they are non-verbal children in a wheelchair. Public
Notices still suggest that they can be inspected at the Council Office but in
practice it can only be done if the relevant member of staff happens to be
available at the time of the visit. Some of these issues have resulted in costly
Stage 2 complaints after Stage 1 acknowledged the complaint was justified but
nothing was done to resolve it.
Mr. Edwards knew of the latter case and was investigating.
Had I known of the survey I would not have responded following my experience
long before BiB existed. I applied to be a member of the Council’s Survey Panel and was accepted.
It became apparent that the multiple choice answers demanded were all geared
towards steering the survey result in a particular direction. I wrote to
the Council about it and their response was that I was not suitable material for their Panel.
This attitude was not apparent from this week’s Scrutiny meeting debate.