Issue - meetings

The Communications and Customer Services Manager presented the West Bridgford Customer Contact Point report to the Group and thanked Members who had attended the site visit earlier in the week.

The Communications and Customer Services Manager explained that the Council had moved to Fountain Court in 2020, a few weeks before the pandemic began, at a time when it was experiencing around 10,000 customer visits per year to its customer service site in West Bridgford. He said, however, that the pandemic had changed behaviours and interactions and visits subsequently dropped to around 3780 in 2023. In light of this, the Council had reviewed its customer access provision at all its sites, including at Cotgrave situated in the HUB, at Bingham situated in the Medical Centre and East Leake in their Library, to ensure that they were fit for purpose, met customer needs and were accessible. The Council had identified that moving the West Bridgford centre to the Library would both improve service and provide financial savings. He updated the Group with information about opening times and dates, currently Monday, Thursday and Friday which had been identified as the busiest times of the week and confirmed that if any changes in need were identified, these timings would be reviewed. He said that being situated in the Library had made the customer centre easier to find and more accessible.

The Communications and Customer Services Manager said that the Council continued to monitor how people chose to interact with customer services and confirmed that most contact was via the telephone, followed by emails and then webform contact and then site visits, with a total of 6000 visits over the year in total to its contact points.

The Communications and Customer Services Manager outlined the main types of service enquiries that it received, being in relation to Council Tax, waste collection, garden waste, benefits and environmental health.

In relation to provision for holding private conversations, the Communications and Customer Services Manager said that the Council had noticed that post pandemic, most private enquiries were coming through via telephone or digital communications. He said that customers had requested a private room at West Bridgford Library on two occasions over the past year and that a library meeting room had been utilised for these on both occasions. He added that should a room be unavailable, a private appointment could be held in a meeting room at Rushcliffe Arena on the same day, if needed. Councillor Plant expressed concern should there be occasion where there were many people wishing to hold private conversations at the same time and the Communications and Customer Services Manager confirmed that the Council was monitoring demand and would look at additional options should there be need.

For comparison, the Group were provided with information about face-to-face customer service provision across the County.

Councillor Phillips asked whether the Library would be able to cope if customer visits returned to pre pandemic levels and the Communications and Customer Services Manager said that the Council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18