Issue - meetings

Procurement: Digital Customer Service Function

Meeting: 11/03/2022 - Performance and Finance Scrutiny Committee (Item 42)

42 Customer Service Centre Function pdf icon PDF 61 KB

A report by the Director of Communities setting out the procurement decision in relation to a Customer Service Centre function.

 

The committee is asked to review the report to ensure: - 

 

  • That the outcome of the procurement meets the objectives of the Council Plan to ensure priorities and targets of the County Council can be met, specifically around KPI51: percentage of digital services available from the Council to support self-service.
  • That the service being procured will provide the Council and its members with real insight into the needs of residents and their interaction with the Council
  • That the outcome of the plans for management of the service and the chosen provider enable the Council to manage and monitor performance of this critical customer-facing service
  • That plans are in place to manage the implementation and transfer to ensure service continuity and value for money.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

42.1     The Committee scrutinised a report by the Assistant Director (Communities), copy appended to the signed minutes.

 

42.2     Summary of Members’ comments and questions: -

 

·       Around 34 Customer Service Centre staff are expected to transfer to the new provider to ensure efficiency of operation. An external provider will have the necessary technical expertise to implement the requirements of the function.  The cost of bringing this back in house would have been considerably more than the estimated cost of £10.2m of the out-sourced contract

·       Council and non-Council staff already work together in some areas, so no problems are envisaged in terms of in-house and out-sourced provision

·       The key is to find an organisation that reflects the values of the County Council which may mean that staff could be located anywhere in the UK. The Covid pandemic has changed the way we work in terms of flexibility so there may be a balance between home and office based working practices.

·       The proposed contract term is only for three years as lessons have been learnt from long contract arrangements in the past.  With technology-based services and contracts it is important to be able to adapt and change quickly to keep up-to-date which is harder with long contracts

·       To bring about the necessary culture change there have been workshops across services talking about what needed to be done differently with digital services and how to make it easy for customers to use. This dialogue will mean staff understand and are better able to address the culture change requirements.

·       There have also been corporate-wide communications, mainly with those impacted which will continue

·       Customers will still be able to make contact by phone

·       Staff will be trained to recognise vulnerable customers, deal with a wide range of queries and know who to pass calls to when appropriate

·       Current key performance indicators (KPIs) covered the whole service so didn’t highlight the differences in performance between areas – the new KPIs would, as well as showing whether the customer got a satisfactory outcome of their call

·       Artificial Intelligence and voice recognition would be used as much as possible

 

42.3     Resolved – that the Committee: -

 

               i.     Supports a partner organisation/function based within West Sussex

             ii.     Recommends a visit to a new provider when possible

            iii.     Recognises the importance of the organisational culture and stresses the importance of two-way communication and feedback plus training

            iv.     Stresses the importance of how the Council interacts with vulnerable customers to ensure they receive the support needed

             v.     Stresses the need to consider how the links are made between the in-house and out-sourced service

            vi.     Recognises the importance of staff training to ensure wider service needs can be recognised and supported when required

           vii.     Supports the inclusion of monitoring and satisfaction targets within the contract

          viii.     Welcomes the work underway to use future technologies