Council has been awarded the National Local Government Customer Service Network, Innovation of the Year Award, for its reporting tool The Customer Activity Tracker otherwise affectionately known as The Cat.

Believe it or not, Council manages a whopping 300,000 customer contacts a year across four locations (Avalon, Mona Vale, Dee Why, and Manly Customer Service Centres) and this interaction was previously captured on multiple platforms which made it difficult to pull together meaningful reports.

The solution? An in-house collaboration between our Customer Service and Information and Digital Technology teams who co-designed and implemented a reporting tool and dashboard to clearly measure performance, understand our customers’ needs and monitor trends across all customer service locations.

This ‘real-time’ dashboard captures each customer interaction including location details, date, time, transaction type and transaction duration which allows staff to proactively monitor and prioritise tasks, optimise resourcing and enhance the customer experience by reducing wait times.

The data gathered is then used to analyse and improve operational efficiencies. When coupled with existing data, Council now has a 360 degree view of customer contacts and trends. And best of all – it was zero cost to the organisation and ratepayer!

And productivity has increased with the average speed of calls answered improved from 1m5sec to 29sec which is an outstanding result and reflects how much value The Cat has added.

Earlier this month, Council received the top award for this innovation from the National Local Government Customer Service Network. The Network is the peak industry body for customer service professionals within the Australian Local Government sector. Since 2015, the annual awards ceremony recognises, rewards and showcases the achievements of customer service professionals. What a great result!