What makes winning customer service
Nelson City Council’s customer service team recently won ‘‘Ultimate Local Government Customer Service Centre’’ at a local government information management conference. takes a behind-the-scenes look at their approach.
When you walk into the council’s call centre, a mounted television screen cycles through photos of customer service staff enjoying activities in and around Nelson.
Manager Jane McLeod said they try to make it a ‘‘happy place’’ for staff, who spend their days responding to a myriad of queries, requests, and complaints from residents and ratepayers.
Other screens in the glass hub show a call log – indicating how many callers are waiting and which staff are on currently on calls.
Spa pool installation, rubbish removal, a inquiry from local iwi and questions about subdividing a property – within half an hour of logging into the phone system Di Lowe has dealt with a variety of matters.
She knows which council officers to refer people to, and can also access codes and legislation to answer initial questions.
The customer service team is the first port of call for information about everything from dog licences, health and liquor licensing for business, rates rebates, building and resource consents, water, sewerage, and rubbish.
Depending on the query, the customer team will either refer it to a specialist staff member or deal with it on the spot.
Team manager Jane McLeod said they’d set up a one-stop shop at the service centre, meaning payments, inquiries, and council applications can be dealt with at a single counter. From selling rubbish bags to receiving submissions to council legislation, it all happens on the bottom floor of Civic House.
McLeod said customer service staff were trained to be generalists – knowing a little about everything, but also knowing when to escalate a query.
‘‘They’re not specialists in anything, but by doing that, at the moment we’re resolving about 76 percent of calls here,’’ McLeod said.
She said some customers were reluctant to talk through queries with the customer team as they assumed enough.
‘‘But even if they don’t want to talk to us, if they tell us what it’s about we can put it into the system,’’ she said.
While a previous system involved leaving messages on desks and answerphones, now the customer service team can track inquiries through an intranet system and ensure a staff member follows up.
McLeod said it’s made a huge difference to dealing with customers’ issues in a timely way and the more information they can get on the initial call, the more efficient the process. they didn’t know
‘‘We can prime it, so when it does get to an officer it’s ready to go,’’ McLeod said.
An integration across departments was key to the council’s win, particularly the role IT plays in customer service.
During flooding in 2011, Lowe said they came in and slept in the council chambers, as part of the civil defence response.
But the IT department has set up a mobile system allowing customer service staff to work from home via laptops that can log in and answer calls if an emergency prevents them getting to the council.
McLeod said their integrated IT system, as well as little extra touches including putting up informational screens in the council foyer, had contributed to the win.
Both McLeod and Lowe said working on the customer service team was rewarding work, if a little challenging at times.
‘‘What we try and keep in our heads is that 95 percent of people are just awesome, and that other part, they’ve often got stuff going on in their lives that we don’t know about,’’ McLeod said.
‘‘These ladies and men who work in here, we don’t have any influence over policy, we’re only here to help. The proportion of nasty people is really low, but they affect you so greatly.’’
Mayor Rachel Reese said the team had done an ‘‘amazing job’’ improving customer service.
‘‘We are lucky to have such hard-working people caring about the service being delivered to our customers,’’ she said.