Agenda item

To scrutinise information (copy attached) on Services’ performance in complying with the Council’s complaints procedure and examine the customer effort and satisfaction results for Denbighshire County Council.

10:45 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.

The Lead Member for Developing Community Infrastructure introduced the Statutory and Corporate Complaints Officer’s report (previously circulated) which provided an overview of compliments, suggestions and complaints received by the Council under its customer feedback policy ‘Your Voice’ during the third quarter of the 2017/18 year. 

The report also included the statistics on the number of complaints received under the Social Services statutory complaints procedure for the same period, along with charts illustrating performance trends in dealing with complaints over a four year period.  

During Quarter 3 of 2017/18 whilst two Stage 1 complaints had not been dealt with within the corporate target, the Council had still exceeded its target by dealing with 98% of complaints within the 10 working days target.  Details were contained within the report on the reasons why the target had not been met in respect of the two complaints not dealt with within the set timescale.

Responding to questions the Lead Member, Head of Community Support Services and Corporate Complaints Officer:

·         confirmed that the purpose of the report was to measure the Council’s performance in dealing with complaints within the set timescale, it reported on the number received and the time it took the Council to respond to them.  It did not analyse the nature of the complaint;

·         advised that whilst Services had a maximum of 10 days to deal with a complaint, they were in most cases dealt with much sooner; and

·         confirmed that the data generated under the performance monitoring process was used by services and departments to identify trends in the types of complaints received and to help instigate measures to improve in areas were complaints were deemed to be increasing.

The Service Improvement Manager introduced the ‘Customer Dashboard – Update Report’, appended to the ‘Your Voice’ report.  This report provided an overview of customer effort and satisfaction results for Quarter 3 of 2017/18 following the contact they had made with the Council.  The report outlined the number of responses received to requests for customer feedback, along with the main positive and negative responses received. 

During her introduction the Service Improvement Manager acknowledged that there had been some reduction in satisfaction levels in November and December compared to October’s results.  However, October’s customer satisfaction rate of 80% was the highest recorded to date. Work was currently underway to extend the customer satisfaction survey to certain public-facing services within the Council.  These were services which generated the highest volume of calls into the Council.  It was envisaged that this development would help improve customer services across a number of customer facing services.

Responding to members’ questions the Service Improvement Manager, Head of Community Support Services and Corporate Complaints Officer:

·         advised that the reason why 60 customers felt that the service received at the initial point of contact with the Council had not met their expectations was in the main due to them expecting their problem to be resolved immediately at the point of contact;

·         confirmed that the Council was currently in the process of recruiting a Welsh Language Officer, whose role would include ensuring compliance with the Council’s Welsh Language Standards;

·         advised that all customer facing staff, and all other staff, were expected to show empathy and compassion when dealing with the public even if they were dealing with an irate complainant.  However, it was important to remember that not all members of the public treated officers with mutual respect and courtesy;

·         confirmed that if members had concerns about a Service’s performance in dealing with complaints or on customer satisfaction rates in relation to a particular Service the Committee could invite them to a future meeting to examine and discuss those concerns; and

·         outlined the process members should follow using the EMMA system when they needed to follow-up on a query/service request registered on the CRM system.

Members were advised by the Lead Member and the Service Improvement Manager that the contract for the delivery of a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system was still in the process of being drawn up.  A meeting was scheduled for the following week with a view to seeking agreement on the final draft of the contract.  Once agreed and signed provisions would be made for the system’s implementation, including training for staff and members on its use etc. 

At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee:

Resolved: to

(i)           receive the report on the Council’s performance in dealing with complaints, compliments and suggestions received under the ‘Your Voice’ Corporate Complaints procedure during Quarter 3, 2017-18; and

(ii)          receive the data on the Customer Effort and Satisfaction results for Denbighshire County Council for Quarter 3, 2017-18.