Customer First programme - Annual Report 2023 to 2024

We’ve created a few new customer-focused training courses and workshops this year. Helping our staff to focus on how they communicate empathically with customers who may be facing difficult situations and ensuring that protocols for dealing with abusive callers are readily available for our staff.

The Customer Partnership Panel has been instrumental in providing valuable feedback from volunteer residents. Throughout the year, these residents have been actively involved, ensuring that their needs and preferences remain at the forefront of our processes. Their input has been crucial in making our services more accessible and user-friendly.

A highlight was a series of workshops focused on Adult Social Care, where residents learned how to access assessments and receive advice.

We also examined our website's effectiveness in serving the community and explored why some residents prefer telephone communication.

Anyone who is over 18 and resident in Buckinghamshire is welcome to join. Visit our website for more information.

We offer bespoke improvement programme support for service areas to ensure that they are best equipped to create a good experience for their customers. This can be in the form of offering training, supporting them through digital and web enhancements, reviewing how their processes work or how staff tackle difficulties.

We’ve supported many services this year in various ways; our Parks Team, Early Years, Planning, Growth & sustainability services, Special Educational Needs Team (SEND), our Film office and our Helping Hands programme and continue to support other services achieve the same customer excellence focus into this coming year.

We are proud of the growth of our new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which is now embedded in all corners of the Council. From reporting a bin to arranging a marriage; and requesting a drop kerb to reporting a high hedge –most of our interactions are now captured in an interactive web form on our single CRM.

Accessibility is key, and we champion inclusivity to cater to a wide range of users, simplifying journeys through common design. Residents will see more improvements of this nature in 2025, particularly if they are accessing our forms on a mobile device.

The process of migrating all our forms onto our new CRM will be complete by the summer of 2025. Once complete, we will start to look at how we can continually improve the quality of these forms.

Fly-tipping is a major concern, due to its impact on our environment, and on the cost to our taxpayers. The annual cost of littering to the Buckinghamshire Council taxpayer is estimated at £3.5 million, to clean and dispose of littered waste safely. The A404 alone costs £25,000 each time it needs clearing of litter.

We now have power to fine up to £2,500 through the magistrates’ court and want to encourage residents to report any evidence of fly-tipping from vehicles. There is nothing more compelling than video evidence, and we now have a form residents can use to upload to us dashcam footage. We will continue to show how serious we take such offences, and how we want to stamp out the actions of those who wish to spoil our shared spaces.

The Fostering Customer Relationship Team was established to enhance the recruitment and retention of foster carers, providing beneficial commercial initiatives, remaining competitive with Independent Fostering Agencies and other authorities, while staying true to the organisation's core values.

The team has become a trusted and essential resource focussing on identifying and enhancing the query-to-application process, adopting efficient processes and software solutions, and increasing engagement with under-represented demographics of foster carers.

After the successful launch of our main website Chatbot in 2023, we’ve continued to make improvements and add more services to the offering. Our microsite for Care Advice Bucks, aimed to help carers, give adult care advice and find further support has recently launched a ChatBot and this allows customers to get instant help, or be transferred directly to a specialist advisor over ‘chat’, which can aid busy customers unable to call in for a quick query.

Our platform has been in use for a few years now, and it has significantly improved our customer experience on the phone. It offers us better functionality too, such as call recording and enhanced reporting, which helps us monitor performance and identify training opportunities.

Customers have clearer expectations regarding call wait times, a call-back function, and the ability to provide feedback after their calls. These improvements have led to more efficient service delivery and higher customer satisfaction.

We’re rolling out the platform to all customer facing team and in 2024 we on-boarded six large service areas to enhance the customers’ experience all the way through their conversations with us.

The current website search provider sometimes fails to return the expected results, which can lead to an increase in resident calls. Given the complexity of our search, we have been collaborating with our web developer to find ways to improve it without incurring the cost of implementing an alternative. We are also exploring other options, such as adding Google search or implementing AI-assisted search.

We are currently testing the AI search with both staff and residents, and early indications are positive. Users appear to appreciate and like the new functionality. The outcome of this research will be an improved specification to ensure we procure a service that is fit for purpose, enhances the customer experience online, and does not create extra contact with the customer services team.

Over the past year we have been conducting a trial of AI to evaluate its potential to improve productivity and drive savings across the council. We have learned that AI can reduce many administrative tasks and has proven particularly effective for transcribing and summarising meetings, which has been our initial focus.

Building on this, large potential time savings have been identified in Adults and Children's social care services, but these are sensitive areas that require professional oversight.

We are in the process of conducting comparison trials of a specialist social care AI application, against an in-house developed AI solution, and new emerging AI alternatives.

Buckinghamshire Council has commissioned Citizens Advice Bucks to support those struggling with debt. Providing debt, welfare benefits and money management advice at no cost, the organisation will be supporting residents with long-term solutions.

The commissioned service will enable a stronger working partnership between the two organisations with customers being directly referred through the council to Citizens Advice Bucks – improving the time it takes to receive help.

Buckinghamshire Council have also developed an online checker tool that guides applicants step-by-step to determine their eligibility and how the council, typically through our Helping Hands service, can assist them.

Buckinghamshire Council is actively working to address the issue of digital exclusion within the community. Through the recent Digital Exclusion Review, the Council has identified key areas at higher risk of digital exclusion and is implementing various initiatives to improve digital skills, connectivity, and access to online services.

The Council's efforts include enhancing the accessibility of its website, offering digital skills courses, and working on projects to improve broadband coverage in rural areas. Additionally, the Council is exploring ways to support residents facing device and data poverty. As part of the Customer First priorities, the Council will work to implement the recommendations of this review, ultimately enhancing the overall customer experience and well-being of Buckinghamshire residents.