Dear Beagle Editor
The recent press release by Council claiming ‘Council’s Tops Customer Service Test’ quotes our General Manager Catherine Dale stating ‘Now she is celebrating a national victory.’ Really? No, it is not a national victory at all. There are something like 537 councils throughout Australia. The company who runs this program is Customer Service Benchmarking Australia who charges council around $12,000 per quarter to take part. It has 60 councils throughout Australia as clients. We do not know just how many took part in the ‘survey’. How do they determine the results of these surveys? By phoning/emailing council pretending to be a ratepayer with a ‘common’ question.
In 2014 the general manager decided to partake in this mystery shopper program when our service was ‘patchy’. Since then council has spent something like $127,000 to participate and continues to do so.
I have lived here for 17 years and have never found customer service staff in need of improvement in relation to their telephone manner/response time etc. It’s only when you start asking the hard questions of senior staff that you hit a brick wall. How the general manager can justify spending $127,000 to fix something that isn’t broken and then to have the mayor congratulate her for her effort is an embarrassment and a blatant waste of OUR money.
It’s only when you start asking the hard questions of senior staff that you hit a brick wall.
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