Customer service and the planning system: a research study

3 Methods and Exemplars of Customer Service

3.1 Planning Performance Framework in Scotland

Planning authorities in Scotland work to a national Planning Performance Framework ( PPF) ^[2] . They each prepare an annual PPF report which includes a qualitative story of that year's performance supported by case studies and a commentary on proposed improvements for the year ahead. National Headline Indicators ( NHIs) are used to provide more measured information on performance covering the major themes of: Development Planning; Development Management; and Enforcement Activity.

The PPF does not currently incorporate specific tangible measures of customer service delivery. Instead these are sought through a narrative commentary and via written case studies. Evidence requested includes positive actions that the planning authority has taken to support sustainable economic growth, initiatives to work consistently with stakeholders and deliver a positive customer experience, such as:

• Evidence of success from development plan action programmes, pre-application processes and policy in practice;
• Protocols and relationship management to ensure reliability of advice and working timescales with stakeholders;
• Clear project management for development planning; and
• Communications strategy through customer service charters, customer surveys and local forums.

A high-level review of PPF reports reveals that some include evidence of customer feedback which is collected by various means including hard copy questionnaires, continuous online surveys and ad hoc focus groups. These appear to be valuable to planning authorities but do not offer consistent metrics to allow performance benchmarking at a national level.

3.2 Customer charters

Customer charters are popular mechanisms for communicating commitments to customer service, for the benefit of customers and employees. These are published by most organisations sampled for the desk research. For commercial organisations the tone of these tends to include promotional messages for example 'nobody will try harder for our customers than we do' and 'serving Britain's shoppers a little better every day'. Public sector organisations tend to strike a more formal tone in their charters, with headline messages such as 'provide an accessible, responsive service and do what we say we will do'.

Local Authority Building Standards services in Scotland collectively adhere to a National Building Standards Customer Charter, which 'provides information about the minimum standards of service that all local authority verifiers should meet'. This gives customers the assurance that a consistent, high quality service should be delivered no matter which local authority provides the service. The national charter is augmented by local authorities' own local commitments, for example:

"We aim to exceed the Council's Corporate target of 84% for customer satisfaction rating the Service as good or excellent."

Argyll and Bute Council Building Services

"Maintain an overall national customer satisfaction rate above 7.5."

Aberdeenshire Council Building Services

Planning authorities in Scotland tend to use their own customer charters to set out the duties of their service. Those interviewed say this helps to manage customer expectations and reduce the volume of unnecessary communication.

Case Study Customer Charter (Extract) – Sapphire Independent Housing

Our mission is to improve lives and value people. We aim to achieve this by having clear guiding values, supported by robust strategic and operation plans that:

• put the needs of our customers first;
• help service users and staff reach their full potential;
• demonstrate continuous improvement; and
• demonstrate fairness, equal opportunities, diversity and respect for all.

At Sapphire Independent Housing we want to ensure that we offer the best possible customer service. We have developed these standards so that you know what you can expect from us. If you have any ideas on how we can improve our service we would love to hear from you.

When you phone us, we will answer the phone quickly and greet you in a friendly and professional manner. When you leave a message for one of our staff we will aim to return calls within 24 hours although occasionally it may take longer to fully deal with queries. We will acknowledge emails and letters within three working days. If for any reason the query is taking longer we will let you know the expected timescale.

3.3 Surveys

Most of the 25 organisations examined for the research run some form of customer satisfaction survey (including all public-sector organisations). These surveys are mainly hosted online although some are undertaken by telephone.

Private sector organisations seem most likely to have sophisticated systems which can relate customer feedback to the individual employees who served them. Direct Line has developed the 'MyCustomer' system which collects over 150,000 monthly responses from customers and provides daily feedback to employees, helping them to adjust their processes and improve customer experience. Yorkshire Water has recently deepened the level of information captured so that customer feedback can be linked back to the individual operator level in the contact centre.

Public sector surveys tend to segment their findings by customer type. Stated objectives for these surveys tend to share similar messages for example The Insolvency Service states this as 'To help the agency gain a better understanding of its customers' expectations and perceptions', and the DVLA states 'To find out where private motorists and commercial drivers are dissatisfied, and identify areas for improvement; and to measure overall reputation'.

The DWP makes extensive use of telephone surveys. Its annual 'Claimant service and experience survey' achieved responses from 15,000 claimants of ten different benefits in 2016/17. The analysis and reporting ascertained levels of overall satisfaction among different benefit claimants and explored other measures including communication, digital services, perceptions of staff (including ease of access, getting it right, keeping customers informed, and right treatment) as well as resolving difficulties.

Among Scottish planning authorities that carry out customer surveys, these have generally moved away from paper-based to online delivery methods (for example using the Survey Monkey platform), which keeps costs lower and can make the administration of surveys more efficient.

Planning authorities report some difficulties in defining and reaching their varied customer base to understand their needs and obtain feedback. One interviewee made a comparison between planning and building services, stating that while building services might have two customers i.e. the applicant and/or an agent, each planning application has several customers including: applicants, agents, objectors and neighbours.

Following a review of a sample of PPF reports, customer survey activity appears to be inconsistent in approach and varying in frequency across Scotland. A key issue for planning authorities appears to be low response rates and an apparent tendency for customers to conflate outcomes and service levels. In other words, if a planning decision works against the customer then they may be more likely to respond unfavourably about the service they receive. Another perceived issue is survey fatigue, caused by customers receiving numerous requests from a range of organisations.

"Two weeks after a planning decision, the team leader runs a report and sends out an email link to customers to complete a twelve-question Survey Monkey questionnaire. That allows for feedback and leaves contact details for follow-up if they want."

Scottish planning authority

"We send out a thousand paper surveys, at great expense, and might get twenty-seven back."

Scottish planning authority

"An issue identified at the HOPS meetings as a Scotland-wide concern, is the difficulty in obtaining a statistically meaningful/representative number of responses to customer surveys. As more and more companies and bodies seek customers' opinions, 'survey fatigue' is becoming a factor, with people only being likely to respond if they have had either a particularly good or a particularly bad experience."

Dumfries and Galloway PPF report

Case Study Customer Survey (Summary of Themes) – Building Standards, Scotland

• About you and your application
• Meeting your expectations
• Progressing your application
• Quality of service
• Communications
• Accessibility
• Overall satisfaction and final comments

Case Study Customer Survey (Measures of Reputation) – DVLA

Reputation is measured against Needs, Trust, Advocacy and Feeling:

• DVLA meets my needs as a customer
• I trust DVLA as an organisation
• I feel I am treated as a valued customer by DVLA
• I would recommend DVLA services to others
• I believe DVLA takes customer views seriously
• I believe DVLA understands my needs

3.4 Forums

A number of Scottish planning authorities make use of customer forums or focus groups to engage with customers, which can either be in place of or in addition to surveys. Invitees include the likes of agents, architects, developers, individual applicants and community councils. One planning authority interviewed for the research believes these provide good levels of feedback, although it can be harder to engage planning application objectors to attend.

"In 2017 we decided face to face consultation would be better so we invited eighty agents and community councillors to a mixed round table discussion from which we formulated an action plan."

Planning authority

As with customer surveys, planning authorities publish details of forums and focus groups in their PPF reports. Customer groups invited to forums tend to be similar for all authorities, although there are variations between authorities in how many forums are held, over what frequency, and for whether there is a particular agenda for the sessions. There is evidence that other public-sector organisations are also making use of forums or similar events, to gather customer feedback.

"During 2017-18 we will develop more informal engagement channels, better communications and host an expanded annual forum, Insolvency Live!"

The Insolvency Service

3.5 Complaint handling

Most organisations examined for the research, publish details of their systems, protocols and service level agreements ( SLAs) for registering and responding to customer complaints via their website, in telephone or in person. These usually involve multiple internal stages of acknowledgement, investigation and attempted resolution via a response letter (with specific timescales for each stage) before referral to the relevant Ombudsman if the customer remains dissatisfied.

AXA PPP Healthcare publishes and measures complaints received as a percentage of policies, for example "during the six-month period ending 31 December 2017, AXA PPP Healthcare Limited received 7.16 complaints for every one thousand policies in force."

Case Study Complaints Policy – Direct Line

Our staff will attempt to resolve your complaint immediately. If this isn't possible, we promise to acknowledge your complaint within five business days of receipt. In the unlikely event that your complaint hasn't been resolved within four weeks of its receipt, we'll write and let you know the reasons why and the further action we'll take.

Within eight weeks of its receipt we'll either issue you with a final response letter detailing the outcome of our investigation and our decision, or a letter confirming when we anticipate to have concluded our investigation.

Some planning authorities interviewed for the research mentioned having a formal process in place by which themes of complaints are identified and reported quarterly to a management team.

3.6 Customer service standards

A range of different customer service standards operate across the public and private sector – summarised below.

Customer Service Excellence ( CSE): This was developed to offer a practical tool for driving customer-focused change within organisations. The foundation of this tool is the CSE Standard which tests in great depth those areas that research has indicated are a priority for customers, with focus on delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude. There is also emphasis placed upon developing customer insight, understanding the user's experience and robust measurement of service satisfaction.

Some local authority services in Scotland (including planning and/or building standards) have achieved CSE status. Pye Tait's previous research for the Building Standards Division ( BSD) identified that those services holding the standards were proud of this status, that they worked hard to maintain a high standard of service, and valued CSE as evidence to internal colleagues and customers of the level of customer commitment offered.

Among planning authorities interviewed for the research, there are mixed views as to the perceived value of customer service standards and accreditations. One mentioned that they are working towards CSE and feel this will give a sense of credibility to their customer service approaches and help to focus staff on continuous service improvement. Others mentioned having limited awareness of such standards, with two expressing some cynicism that they can involve jumping through a lot of hoops and that it can be hard to determine the difference and impact that the standards can have.

Other recognised standards and accreditations which can help to underpin good quality customer service include the following:

Investors in People ( IiP): IiP is an internationally recognised Standard for better people management. Based on 25 years of leading practice, it is underpinned by a rigorous assessment methodology and a framework which reflects the latest workplace trends, essential skills and effective structures required for performance success. Accreditation against the IiP Standard is expected to denote a great employer, an outperforming place to work and a clear commitment to sustainability.

ISO 9001: Published and overseen by the International Organisation for Standardisation ( ISO), the ISO 9000 standard is a collection of management principles designed to ensure that an organisation's quality management systems meet the needs of customers, staff and other key stakeholders. Within this structure, ISO 9001 concerns the requirements those companies must fulfil if they want to successfully meet the standard. To register for ISO 9001, an organisation must have implemented and documented an independently audited quality management system.

Customer Satisfaction Measurement Tool ( CSMT): The CSMT was developed by the Improvement Service and launched in 2010, providing a national standard for local government and partners to evaluate customer service performance. The CSMT was used as a starting point for the development of the first national customer survey questionnaire for the BSD and provides another useful resource for identifying best practice and common themes in measuring good customer service.