Dunedin City Council

Thank you to William Robertson and his team at the Dunedin City Council Contact Centre.

Please provide us with a brief overview of how your centre is structured and the main call types the centre receives?
The Customer Services Agency sits within the Council’s Customer Services Group, which also includes the i-Site and Business Information Services (ICT by any other name). The Group’s vision is “meeting customer needs”, which underpins our approach. We have dropped the traditional Grade of Service target and have, instead, tried to focus on the things that matter to our customers – firstly getting their call answered timeously, having their query answered first time and having the call handled professionally and to the caller’s satisfaction.

We have to accept that, as a Council, we are not going make all customers happy. The best we can aim for is that we provide a quality service and answer the enquiry or log the service request to the customer’s satisfaction.

What is the overriding vision that drives your team
Our values reflect this:
- Trust
- Teamwork
- Quality/Professionalism
- Friendliness/approachability

Of these, probably the most important is Trust: if the Customer Services Officer loses (or fails to gain) the caller’s trust then the caller will ring back. No matter whether the information given is accurate or not.

What are the main challenges you are facing this year?
Like most organisations, we are being asked to do more with no additional resources as well as dealing with more complex call types – eg IT Service Desk.   There is also a pressure to take on additional admin tasks.

We also have the challenge of bidding for additional capital budget for technology, etc and competing with high profile, “big ticket” items of Council expenditure. Often it is more difficult to get $150,000 to upgrade technology than it is to get $15 million to upgrade roads.

General information:
Seats: 22
Staff numbers: 35  - Includes management layer, weekend staff (2), evening staff (2), stand alone functions and part time workers
Induction training length: 4 Weeks – All inhouse
Call volumes: 310,000 yearly
Average call duration:   2 minutes
KPIs:      Average wait of 15 seconds or less,
Average abandoned rate of 5% or less
80% of calls resolved a 1^st point of contact
Customer satisfaction of 90% or more
Staff quality score of 85% or more
Peak times:
February/March (A mixture of tourism and returning students!)
July (Dog registration)
July/August (Weather related – nothing bumps up call volumes like torrential rain or a “snow day”)

Contact Centre main call types:
- Regulatory
- Animal Control
- Parking
- Water & Waste
- Building control
- Rates
- Library
- PoolParks & Reserves

Hours of Operation:
8am to 8pm Mon-Fri
9am to 5pm Sat & Sun