New City Council Telephone Service
A new telephone service to deal with the full range of Revenues and Benefits enquiries (e.g. council tax, housing benefit, business rates) goes live on Friday 14 March. It will be available 24 hours a day 365 days a year. The number will be
0845 9400 820
The new service will be quicker (no waiting- it is supposed to respond in less than three rings).
Leaflets on it will be available in all city info units in the near future; a copy of the Leaflet can be seen here.
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No doubt this new system requires the caller to simply talk to an answering machine. On numerous occasions lately I have tried to contact the Council and have had to hang on for the obligatory three minutes, being repeatedly told that while my call was important to the Council, this is a high demand service and I am in a queue, but that my call can only be held for 3 minutes. (although on some calls I was cut off after only 30 seconds).
I left messages as requested, the call back, promised within 24 hours, never happened in the prescribed time, if at all,and consequently the caller had to leave messages for me. They never left a direct contact number though, so I was back in the loop to leave yet another message on the Council voice mail system.
The new system may well enable the Council to tick a box for the Government to say they answer calls within 3 rings, but in truth they don’t.
What people want when they call is to speak to a person , who can take a message, or sort out the problem there and then.
I agree with you. but it was worse. Before I got on the City Council the message said that I would be give then ‘option’ of leaving a message, so I assumed that I could just hold, and then I was cut off.
One of the first things I got done after I was elected was to have the message changed to make it clear that there was in fact no choice about what would happen.
The fact is that the Council bought an unsatisfactory system some time ago and is lumbered with it.
With the unitary council in sight, there is no point buying a new one as all the systems of all the districts will have to be integrated.
So all I can do is apologise. If you e-mail me with the issue I will try to sort it for you.
Thanks Nigel,
After a week of trying I eventually managed to speak to a real, live voice, and the problem was sorted in no time. It’s a pity it took 7 calls: three messages on the answering machine; one message let with the switchboard when I insisted on speaking to a person and not a machine, ( nothing happened, no-one rang back); and 2 attempts when I just hung up in frustration.
Nnever mind it was a lucky 7th call when I got through, but thanks anyway.