Brimbank Council’s Customer Service Department is one of Victoria’s first customer service business units to complete Best Value’s intense investigation, consultation and strategy development process.
Recently completing the process, it was found that Council was not far off the mark in delivering the kind of service that the Brimbank community expects, and that there were a number of opportunities to exploit. Manager of Brimbank City Council’s Customer Service Department, Steve Crawcour, who embarked on the Best Value journey, said the process was intimidating.
“There was no existing template to follow and no specific outcomes or expectations to aim for, just a philosophy of what Best Value represents,” Steve said.“The legislation sets out Best Value guidelines, but Brimbank Council settled on its own set of objectives – Challenge, Compare, Consult, Compete.
“In the first phase, we set out to identify everything Council does that falls under the Customer Service banner, to determine how it impacts or interfaces with all other areas of Council, and to challenge its ability to deliver to our customers’ expectations.”
A core role of Council’s Customer Service Department is its Call Centre. Steve wanted to test the Call Centre and other functions, such as front counter and teller services, against similar services.
Currently, the Call Centre is monitored electronically, identifying high volume periods, abandonment rates and queues.
By recognising the areas that needed improvement, the second phase of the Best Value process, ‘Comparing’ or benchmarking, was initiated. During this phase, Steve visited five municipalities that have similar demographics, resources and challenges as Brimbank.
The rigorous consultation process followed, involving surveys of up to 800 stakeholders, both internal and external to Council.Steve said that a highlight of the survey process was Council’s newly introduced ‘reverse call centre’. Here Call Centre staff rang people who had, within the previous week, lodged requests on the request tracking system.
“Because they were talking to Council staff, residents were able to raise questions which were not part of the survey, but which we were able to respond to either at the end of the call or at a later date,” he said.
After the consultation phase was completed, the data was collected and used to analyse how well Customer Service measured up against the expectations of the community. Recommendations for a number of improvement projects resulting from the review are already formulated and are awaiting approval.
