Customer Services improving
Improvements made to Customer Services are saving St Albans City and District Council staff-time and money.
Face-to-face visits to the Customer Services team are down 22% so far this year while telephone calls to the contact centre are down 21%.
The reductions have allowed two of the team to be switched to help departments with heavy workloads.
Others are being trained to take over first-time calls to the Planning department to ease the pressure on that team.
Changes to Customer Services are an important component of the £700,000-plus savings the Council hopes to make for the financial year 2016/17.
An update on their impact was made to a meeting of the Council’s Cabinet on Thursday 19 November.
Face-to-face visits at the Civic Centre, St Peter’s Street, St Albans, have dropped steeply since self-service kiosks were installed.
The figure was down from 4,568 in March, 2015, when the digital service was introduced, to 2,896 last month.
Telephone calls have decreased since residents have been able to call the waste contractor Amey directly with inquiries and payments for certain services.
The number of calls the Council has to deal with has dropped by around 2,000 a month to around 10,700.
Direct access to Amey is one of the Council’s ways of improving services to residents under its Customer Access and Digital Strategy.
Councillor Alec Campbell, Portfolio Holder for Resources for St Albans City and District Council, said: “The quality of Customer Services is improving while at the same time we are saving time and money through initiatives such as the greater use of digital technology.
“The residents are benefiting from this approach. They are getting better access to services and a more efficient Council.
“We will continue our strategy to improve access and reduce costs.”
Papers from the Cabinet meeting are available here: https://stalbans.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=117&MId=7822&Ver=4
Councillor contact:
Cllr Alec Campbell, Portfolio Holder for Resources, St Albans City and District Council.
Tel: 01727 760750 Email: Cllr.A.Campbell@stalbans.gov.uk
Contact for the media:
John McJannet, Principal Communications Officer, St Albans City District Council
Tel: 01727 296130
E-mail: john.mcjannet@stalbans.gov.uk