Agenda item

Discussion with representative from the Tenants’ Council call centre working party

6.1  The Acting Housing Management Borough Coordinator introduced the report on the work of the Customer Service Centre (CSC) working party, a working party of the Tenants’ Council.

6.2  She explained that in summer 2008 the Southwark Group of Tenants Organisations (SGTO) had raised concerns about the management of housing repairs through the customer service centre.

6.3  The outcome was the establishment in March 2010 of a group of council officers, residents and representatives from the call centre with the purpose of improving the customer service experience.

6.4  The group had met several times and positive changes had been made as a result of their work which were outlined in the report circulated with the agenda for the meeting.

6.5  The working party had 4 areas of work that it would be looking into with regard to the call centre:

-  Quality

-  Vulnerability

-  Script

-  Training

6.6  Steve Hedger, Chair of the Tenants’ Council, explained to the sub-committee that as part of its ongoing work, the working party had listened in to 4 outbound calls from the call centre. These were the call back calls done following a housing repair.

6.7  He explained that there were considerable concerns around the collection of data as a result of these calls as it appeared that some residents were not understanding the script used, and in some instances questions on the script were not asked at all.

6.8  The sub-committee discussed how this part of the working party’s findings linked directly to the performance indicators scrutiny, and that it would be useful for sub-committee members to listen to a random selection of outbound calls, as they had inbound calls.

RESOLVED

1.  That the sub-committee would be provided with a CD of 50 random outbound housing repairs call-back calls to listen to in advance of the next meeting of the sub-committee.

1.  That the sub-committee would be provided with the script which is used by the staff in the call centre as they make these calls.