Release Date:  20-May-2008

Bristol City Council's Customer Service Centre was one of the top performers in a recent report from central government focussing on publicly funded contact centres.  

The 'Performance Management Framework for publicly funded contact centres' is a new reporting mechanism developed by central government to compare the performance of CSCs throughout the country. 

Key findings from the report included:  

• The average 'calls answered' score in customer service centres nationally was 85%. Performance in Bristol's CSC for this quarter was 93% - well above average.
• Industry good practice for the 'cost per call minute' is between 40p to 50p. Bristol CSC's cost per call minute is 54p - close to reaching 'good practice' and heading in the right direction.
• On average nationally, the report found that 'first contact resolution rate' - where the caller's enquiry is dealt with satisfactorily on their first phone call - was 71%. While Bristol's CSC does not currently measure this for all services, the performance for street scene, waste and public protection is 97% - again exceeding the average and leading the way.

The Customer Service Centre (CSC) is the first point of contact for the thousands of people accessing the council's services every day. More than 80 staff handle around 600,000 calls a year on a range of queries, from bin collections to pest control and housing benefits. A total of 33 council services will be handled through the CSC by 2010.  

Councillor John Bees, Cabinet Member for Transformation and Resources, said: “The Customer Service Centre is making a real, positive difference to the experience people have when they contact the council. As a council we are ambitious together in our commitment to make it as easy as possible for residents in our city to contact us and I welcome the findings of this report, which show we are heading in the right direction.”  

The Customer Service Centre is part of Access to Bristol (A2B). Wherever customers see the A2B logo, they can access a range of council services at a time and place convenient to them, online, by telephone, or face to face at a Customer Service Point. 

Author:  Matt Smith

For all media enquiries relating to this press release, please contact Corporate Communications on 0117 922 2650.

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