Southport city councillor Brooke Patterson calls out council on poor response times

Ratepayers have vented about waiting for a quick response from the Gold Coast City Council customer contact centre, after a councillor warned of a one-hour delay.

Ratepayers have vented about waiting for a quick response from the Gold Coast City Council customer contact centre, after a councillor warned of a one hour delay.

But others have targeted the councillor, Southport’s Brooke Patterson, who has had a running political battle with the City’s top brass in administration.

“Another own-goal from the council’s leading own-goal scorer,” a resident wrote.

“If the wait time was so long, why didn’t she use the call back function, like most people do. Because, grandstanding, that’s why.”

Councillor Brooke Patterson — says contact centre response times to her were unacceptable. Picture: Portia Large.

Other residents are blaming their delays on the “massive population growth” or calling for more staffers to work counter services. The City has opted against this because most ratepayers want to phone or email.

“Oh the irony, being treated like one of her constituents,” a resident wrote.

Ms Patterson revealed her concerns about council’s poor response times during a committee meeting. Her remarks to officers surprised colleagues.

She said she could have walked to the counter at her office at the old Southport chambers but decided instead to call the City’s “general number” for customers. She was informed the wait would be an hour.

A City spokesperson said the Customer Contact team handled around 730,000 customer interactions every year and “we are proud of our 87 per cent customer satisfaction rating which we continually track”

A female resident in a response to the Bulletin story said: “I waited two hours on hold last week and still couldn’t get through but somehow because a GC councillor was inconvenienced this is now headline news.”

But others backed the City, which says it has excellent response times.

“Phoned up recently about water being cut off without notice. The wait time was reasonable and the service both efficient and polite,” the ratepayer wrote.

A Gold Coast City councillor is furious after contacting council’s call centre and being told she will have to wait an hour to get assistance.

‘WAITING AN HOUR IS UNACCEPTABLE’: CONCERNS OVER COUNCIL’S WAIT TIMES

Outspoken governance chair Brooke Patterson revealed her concerns about council’s poor response times during a committee meeting. Her remarks to officers surprised colleagues.

She said she could have walked to the counter at her office at the old Southport chambers but decided instead to call the City’s “general number” for customers.

“I thought it would be useful to go through that process and see what it’s like. I’ve got the customer service desk, I could have just gone to the officers outside my office,” Ms Patterson told the Bulletin.

“I thought I would test this, and it said ‘your waiting will be longer than an hour’. I don’t think that’s acceptable, by any grounds.”

A City spokesperson said the Customer Contact team handled around 730,000 customer interactions every year and “we are proud of our 87 per cent customer satisfaction rating which we continually track”.

“Over the past year, most customers who called us waited less than five minutes to speak with someone,” the spokesperson said.

“Our busiest periods do see an increase in wait times which is why we have introduced a call back service, so customers do not have to wait on hold. We have also extended the operating hours of our call centre.”

A council source said Ms Patterson’s colleagues were shocked by her remarks and believed a committee meeting was the wrong place to discuss it.

“It feels like Councillor Patterson is trying to take a crack at the organisation than ask a real question. She could have done it in a different manner,” the source said.

But Ms Patterson said she took the opportunity to raise the contact centre matter because a report being discussed talked of the “retiring of policies” including customer support.

“I just wanted to raise it given we were considering the councillor contact policy. It will need to come to a future committee, what their plan is around that,” she said.

Asked what a reasonable response time was, she replied: “I don’t know – but not an hour. I think we should be one of the best of councils in the country (for response times). Why not.”

The Gold Coast City Council call centre. Picture: Matthew Howard, Ten News

A City source said: “Other councillors did not know why it was being aired at committee in that way. Some councillors have done their own investigations to get the most recent data for the council contact centre.

“It shows that for the average time a person spends on the phone for the customer contact centre is under five minutes.”

The report to councillors said the current policy was first established in September 2001 and has not been reviewed since, prompting council to embark on significant customer transformation under the banner of the “Customer at the Centre Program”.

The Bulletin understands the City aims to have calls attended to in an average of 50 seconds and also sets a target of 85 per cent of those being resolved after the first contact.

Surveying in 2022 found 29.42 per cent of respondents are extremely likely to speak positively about their experience with City of Gold Coast, 34.55 per cent are not likely to speak positively and 36.04 per cent were neutral.

The top three priorities for ratepayers were:

* Proactively notifying you when we become aware of an issue that might affect you” (82.73 per cent).

* Keeping you informed about the progress of your requests (67 per cent).

* Reducing response times on phone calls and emails (65.95 per cent).

The City spokesperson said officers would report back on Cr Patterson’s Question on Notice.

Follow @PaulWestonGC 

 

Originally published as Southport city councillor Brooke Patterson calls out council on poor response times