BATHO PELE & CUSTOMER CARE - 3c

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     BATHO PELE &
     CUSTOMER CARE

     CUSTOMER SATISFACTION    CONTACT POINTS                 E-SERVICES

     To satisfy consumers,    Customer contact improved      Sophisticated e-services set up to
     improvements in staff    through People’s Centres and   give access to information and
     performance and system   new call centres               assistance online
     efficiency

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BATHO PELE & CUSTOMER CARE - 3c
BATHO PELE & CUSTOMER CARE

     CONTEXT                                                                    PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
     The previous chapter described the City’s commitment to be more            Staff and organisational performance management
     responsive and inclusive towards residents. It reviewed mechanisms,        Any municipality wanting to build a ‘culture of public service and
     systems, processes and procedures to either listen to residents’ needs     accountability’ needs to look carefully at its internal administrative
     and interests, or to get their perspective on the most appropriate         systems. The Municipal Systems Act ruled that municipalities must see
     planning and service delivery choices for their communities.               performance management as a key system, both to sharpen the ability
                                                                                to define what individual staff should do and how they should do it, and
     This chapter also describes the City’s efforts to be more responsive to    to hold the organisation as a whole to a desirable level of functioning.
     residents. But whereas the previous chapter covered how the City
     has endeavoured to respond to residents as citizens, this chapter          There are two aspects to the City’s performance management system.
     focuses on how the City has worked to become more responsive to            On the one hand is a staff or personnel performance management
     residents as consumers of its many service offerings.                      system that structures the work of individual managers and
                                                                                professional staff, and measures achievement of annual work goals.
     The Municipal Systems Act outlines a set of duties of each South           The other is the organisational performance management system
     African municipality towards its residents. Many of these duties have      that defines the annual development and delivery targets of the
     to do with how a municipality should treat its residents as consumers      organisation as a whole, and measures progress towards these outputs
     of municipal services. So, for example, section 6 of the Act says that a   and outcomes. In the City of Johannesburg the two systems are
     municipality must “facilitate a culture of public service and              closely aligned. They integrate in the City Scorecard which is regarded
     accountability amongst staff”; “give members of the local community        as the responsibility of the City Manager.
     full and accurate information about the level and standard of
     municipal services they are entitled to receive”; and “inform the local    This chapter outlines the personnel performance management system.
     community how the municipality is managed, of the costs involved and       The next chapter talks a little more about organisational performance
     the persons in charge”. These principles are reinforced at a number        management.
                                         41
     of other points throughout the Act.
                                                                                System in outline
     The City of Johannesburg is absolutely committed to ensuring that it       The personnel performance management system is based primarily
     executes its functions not only in a way that meets the priority service   on a performance scorecard for each participating member of staff.
     needs of residents, but also meets their expectations of high levels of    At the start of each financial year each official works with their
     efficiency, respect and care. The Executive Mayor made this one of the     manager to set down annual performance objectives, usually stated
     six core priorities of his term of office, committing to the highest       as output targets. Progress is assessed every quarter, with major half
     standards of service delivery excellence, Batho Pele and customer care.    and full year evaluations in January and July, and coaching sessions to
                                                                                determine what can be done to assist the staff member to perform
     This chapter describes some of what the City has done over the last        better at the end of the intervening two quarters. If a staff member
     five years to enhance Batho Pele and customer care. Specifically, it       performs to expectations at the end of the financial year, he or she may
     reviews the introduction of a performance management system                be awarded a performance bonus on top of annual gross salary.
     covering personnel performance, improved customer contact, a City
     satisfaction survey, and special interventions to address priority         For senior officials there is another dimension to the system. As
     customer concerns.                                                         required by the Municipal Systems Act at least the municipal manager
78
and first level reporting line senior managers must be on fixed term        JOBURG CONNECT
performance contracts. If a manager does not perform according to           ‘Joburg Connect’ is the City’s contact centre for all customer service
expectations after five years his or her performance contract may not       queries and complaints. It operates around the clock, every day of the
be renewed.                                                                 week and every single day of the year.

The expectations on the City Manager are the most stringent. His             Date                                      Efficiency of call centre
performance is assessed as progress made on the City Scorecard for
                                                                            February 2002                                                  18,25
the City as a whole. As described in the next chapter, a Performance
                                                                            March 2002                                                     17,43
Management and Remuneration Panel, made up of external
                                                                            April 2002                                                     16,26
independent specialists and stakeholders appointed by the Executive
                                                                            May 2002                                                       16,02
Mayor, rigorously assesses his, and therefore in turn the City’s,
                                                                            June 2002                                                      16,03
accomplishments over the year.
                                                                            July 2002                                                      14,25
                                                                            August 2002                                                    13,33
Refining the system                                                         September 2002                                                 13,34
The City’s performance management system was launched with the              October 2002                                                   11,36
development of a Performance Management Policy and Procedure                November 2002                                                  10,76
Document in July 2001. A series of complementary documents                  December 2002                                                  11,40
accompanied this, including an easy to understand Performance               January 2003                                                     7,97
Management System Employees’ Handbook, and a template for the               February 2003                                                    8,93
working of the Performance Scorecard. This laid a foundation for            March 2003                                                       7,32
the roll-out of the system.                                                 April 2003                                                       6,38
                                                                            May 2003                                                         5,68
Over the last five years, the performance management system has
been cascaded down to the first four levels of management in all parts      Table 3.1: This table shows changing efficiency on a measure of efficient
of the organisation, and to in some departments to staff even lower         call centre response to customer queries, from the National Treasury’s
                                                                            Mid-Term Review of Johannesburg’s Restructuring Grant. The values are
down. The 2005/06 financial year will see the further cascading down
                                                                            given by the formula: [(A-B)/A] x C
to levels five (and possibly even six).
                                                                            Where:
                                                                            A is the number of calls taken in each month;
A key innovation over the last few years has been the increasing
                                                                            B is the number of calls resolved in each month, regardless of which
alignment between the commitments expressed in the individual                 month the call was taken;
performance scorecards of senior managers and the output and                C is the average time taken to resolve a query. The average (in days)
outcome indicators set down in departmental business plans.                   time is based on all resolved calls, regardless of which month the call
                                                                              was taken.

CUSTOMER CONTACT POINTS                                                     The fewer the calls received, the more that are resolved, and/or the less
                                                                            the time taken to resolve a query, the lower is the efficiency measure.
Residents’ perceptions of the City as an efficient institution that cares
                                                                            The results therefore show clear efficacy gains over the period.
about their service concerns are to a very large extent shaped by their
experiences of making contact with the City. There are a number of
key points of contact between the City administration and customers.

                                                                                                                                                        79
BATHO PELE & CUSTOMER CARE
     Joburg Connect is structured into two departments.                            Connecting to other call centres
                                                                                   There are a number of other customer contact management facilities in
     On the one hand is Emergency Connect. On 37 55 911, this is a 24 hour         the City besides Joburg Connect. For example, Johannesburg Water has
     emergency services call centre. Qualified call centre agents are available    its own call centre to specifically handle queries related to water services
     to receive calls relating to all life threatening emergencies, and to         disruptions, and to handle accounts queries from the customers that
     dispatch appropriate response vehicles such as ambulances, fire engines,      it deals with directly. The company has historically managed the top
     rescue vehicles and metro police.                                             15 000 water customers of the City directly, with the remainder of the
                                                                                   accounts handled by the City of Johannesburg’s Revenue Management
     On the other hand is Care Connect. On 37 55 555, this deals primarily         Unit. As of 2005, a further 170 000 additional customer accounts,
     with all general enquiries around municipal services. It handles              representing around 30% of Johannesburg Water’s revenue, have been
     customers wanting to query accounts, notify the municipality of water         transferred to it. It is in the process of upgrading its call centre systems
     or electricity service disruptions, report problems with other services       to manage these.
     such as broken streetlights or potholes, or find out information on
     traffic fines or city services such as Metrobus.                              One of the challenges for Joburg Connect has been to construct
                                                                                   proper interfaces with call centres in the UACs. Since customers are
     The introduction of Joburg Connect has enabled the City to realise a          shared between the City and some UACs it may not automatically be
     number of service efficiency gains. First, the service enables queries        clear to an operator whether, for example, an accounts query related
     and complaints to be properly and promptly addressed. Ideally,                to water should be dealt with by the City or by Johannesburg Water.
     responses should be immediate and over the phone, but sometimes               It has worked consistently over the last few years to ensure that these
     follow-up action needs to be taken to solve unique customer                   interfaces are correctly defined and operational.
     problems. The City has worked hard over the last few years to ensure
     that the back-office connections are in place so that call centre staff       Efficiency improvements
     can investigate a concern and find the right information or personnel         Over the last few years, steady improvements have been made within
     that can adequately address a particular customer query.                      and to Joburg Connect. Table 3.1 gives the results of a call centre
                                                                                   efficiency index applied to measure efficiency improvements to Joburg
     Second, the service enables call-handling times and response-                 Connect in the early part of the current term of office. The performance
     effectiveness to be properly measured. For many customers there is            improvement measure was required by National Treasury as one of
     nothing more frustrating than a dedicated service-complaints number           many conditions for awarding a Restructuring Grant to the City.
     that, when phoned, takes forever to be answered. This often reinforces
     customer perceptions of service inefficiency.42 Proper measurement of         In 2005/06 further improvements are planned. For example, an
     how long it takes for a call to be answered, and what proportion of           initiative called the ‘Scripting Project’ aims to provide call centre
     queries or complaints can be addressed in a specific time, is critical to     operators with an electronic script of important information needed to
     improving customer responsiveness.                                            immediately and correctly identify a customer’s problem, and properly
                                                                                   inform the caller of processes and procedures that will be taken to
     Third, it enables the City to detect and track trends in customers’ service   resolve the problem.
     delivery concerns. This in turn enables useful management information
     to be fed into forecasting and business planning exercises that, over         Added to this will be a system that identifies the telephone number of
                                                                       43
     time, may prevent the concerns from arising in the first place.               the customer calling and, as far as is possible, immediately associates
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BATHO PELE & CUSTOMER CARE
     this with all currently recorded information on the customer as well as
     prior calls logged on the problem. This will dramatically cut down the
                                                                                                  70,0
     need for callers to give their information again and again.
                                                                                                  60,0

     E-SERVICES                                                                                   50,0

                                                                                     Percentage
     Customers do not have to call the City to interface with it. Over the                        40,0
     last few years the City has put in place a number of ‘e-services’ that                       30,0
     provide customers with access to information on key issues online.
                                                                                                  20,0
     Accessed through the City of Johannesburg’s website, e-services
                                                                                                  10,0
     currently enables the most extensive set of on-line services of any
     municipality in the country.                                                                  0,0
                                                                                                           Total   1     2    3     4    5    6   7   8   9   10   11
                                                                                                                                         Region
     The e-services website (www.eservices.joburg.org.za) currently                                       2003         2004       2005
     offers the following services: access to water and lights invoices; ability
     to enter meter readings; ability to view the progress of building plans;
     ability to fill in an online valuation form to assist the City in evaluating   Figure 3.1: Satisfaction with current service delivery 2003-2005.

     a property correctly; and access to free interactive GIS maps of
     Johannesburg. In addition, business owners are provided with the
                                                                                                  100,0
     ability to submit RSC levy declarations online.

                                                                                                   80,0
     The City has also moved rapidly into the era of information and
     communications technology based service delivery. For example,
                                                                                     Percentage

                                                                                                   60,0
     regular Metrobus passengers can put themselves onto a service that
     sends daily updated information on shifts and trip changes via SMS.                           40,0

                                                                                                   20,0
     PEOPLE’S CENTRES
     People’s Centres have been established in or adjacent to the regional                          0,0
     administration offices in each of the City’s eleven Regions. These are                               Total    1     2    3     4    5    6   7   8   9   10   11
                                                                                                                                         Region
     walk-in centres that enable residents to pay their bills, query accounts,
                                                                                                          2003         2004       2005
     and make various kinds of applications – such as to benefit from the
     City’s social package or to put their name on the Provincial Housing
     Waiting List. People’s Centres, run by the regional administrations,           Figure 3.2: Satisfaction with electricity 2003-2005.
     have become a key and well-recognised point of customer care across
                                                                                    whether or not it is improving service delivery. The one survey targets a
     the city.
                                                                                    representative sample of residents across the City’s eleven Regions, and
                                                                                    the other a representative sample of different kinds of businesses.
     CITY SATISFACTION SURVEY
                                                                                    However both surveys ask very similar questions about priority concerns,
     The City of Johannesburg has recognised that it needs to take regular          perceptions of the quality of and annual improvements in different
     stock of how well it is doing in the eyes of the public. It has therefore      service offerings, as well as experiences with the City’s customer relations
     introduced two customer satisfaction surveys to test perceptions of            facilities such as Joburg Connect.

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The customer satisfaction surveys were introduced in 2003, and were           Over the last few years the City has begun to make strides in
run for the third time in mid-2005. A sample from the latest survey           addressing the inherited inadequacies of the system. The process has
report, showing changing satisfaction levels over the three years in          been given a boost by the Executive Director of Finance devoting
response to selected issues, is provided in figures 3.1 to 3.4.               himself full time to the process of fixing billings.

EFFICIENCY IN RELATION TO CUSTOMER CONCERNS                                   Progress on improved billings is reported in more detail in Chapter 5.

The City has done much to improve a general culture of performance
                                                                              DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS
within the organisation, to set up contact points that facilitate
                                                                              There are a number of reasons that processes for approval of township
communication between the administration and customers with
                                                                              establishment, land use changes and building plans began to take
specific concerns, and to keep track of how customers are feeling
about the City’s service delivery performance. However, the City has          longer than expected over the last five years.

also gone beyond this to specifically address some issues which have
been singled out by customers, and often also the media, as areas of          One reason is that, as with billings, the City had to reconcile a number

weakness in efficient customer relations. Two of the most important           of different systems and procedures inherited from the disestablished

are billings and the processing of development applications.                  MLCs it incorporated. The challenge of integration was exacerbated by
                                                                              the unavoidable reality of the City of Johannesburg splitting up into
BILLINGS                                                                      a number of UACs.
For a number of historical reasons, the systems by which the
municipality keeps records of its customers’ rates and services               Another reason was the sheer increase in size of the workload. As
accounts, reconciles, prints and transmits bills, and records meter           economic development in the city has taken off, and with the increase
readings to determine what customers would be charged on the next             in property prices at the top end of the housing ladder, Johannesburg
account, have not functioned optimally.                                       has seen a massive increase in both the number and the value of
                                                                              development applications over the last five years. Staff and systems
The main reason for the weakness is that the City of Johannesburg             were simply not in place to accommodate this unexpected growth.
inherited a number of different systems from the disestablished
Metropolitan Local Councils of the 1995-2000 period. These in turn            A third reason, in part related to the hugely increased workload in the
did not manage to fully integrate systems that they had inherited from        Directorate of Development Control, has been the departure of a
separate apartheid local authorities amalgamated for the first                number of key staff.
democratic local elections. This has meant that the current system has
had to shoulder the burden of fragmentation in the past system of             Over the last two years, the City has moved swiftly to put in place new
government, reflected in incompatible computer platforms and                  staff capacity, and new systems and procedures to deal with what was
software applications, as well as historical flaws in the architecture of     a growing backlog in development applications.
some of these systems, which were never apparent to the original
designers or users. The current term of office has seen frustrations of       First, the City has taken the bold step of disestablishing its Development
the City’s customers mount as this incoherent set of systems has begun        Tribunal, made up of councillors from different political backgrounds.
to: generate incorrect bills, fail to capture meter reading data correctly,   The task of approvals has been put into the hands of officials in the
lose customer address information and, when customers complain,               Directorate of Development Management with delegated powers, as
disallow easy correction of the problems.                                     well as a technical Planning Committee of qualified officials.
                                                                                                                                                           83
BATHO PELE & CUSTOMER CARE
     Authority to approve, amend or refuse applications which are not in
     line with the IDP or Regional Spatial Development Frameworks, and
                                                                                               100,0
     where no objections have been received, were delegated to officials in
     the Department of Development Planning, Transport and Environment.                         80,0
     Planning Committees, consisting of officials from different disciplines

                                                                                  Percentage
     in the City, were then established to deal with those applications                         60,0
     where objections were received. The results of this move are
                                                                                                40,0
     demonstrated in table 3.2.

                                                                                                20,0
     The figures reflect an improvement over the months before the system
     was installed, and especially noteworthy is the fact that the Planning                      0,0
     Committee has effectively whittled away the backlog referred to it.                               Total   1     2    3     4    5    6   7   8   9   10   11
                                                                                                                                     Region
     However, it is clear that the new procedures are still not able to                                2003        2004       2005
     successfully deal each month with as many applications as are being
     submitted. The inability to deal with all the applications coming in is
     primarily due to incomplete applications that need to be referred back      Figure 3.3: Satisfaction with water 2003-2005.
     to the applicant, and complications with applications. The result is that
     the backlog is still growing.
                                                                                               100,0

     In order to further streamline the processes of dealing with                               80,0
     development applications the City has introduced other measures.
     One key challenge is that many applications cannot be finalised because
                                                                                  Percentage

                                                                                                60,0
     the applicant has not submitted all the necessary information. The City
                                                                                                40,0
     has moved to address this problem by re-organising its frontline
     reception of applications. Rather than simply taking the application and
                                                                                                20,0
     signing it, front-line staff now rigorously check whether the application
     has all the necessary information to be adjudicated. If it does not it is                   0,0
     not received to clog the decision-making system.                                                  Total   1     2    3     4    5    6   7   8   9   10   11
                                                                                                                                     Region
                                                                                                       2003        2004       2005
     In addition, the City Manager’s Office, assisted by consultants, has
     investigated a range of system’s design issues related to the processing
     of applications. It has made a number of recommendations that will          Figure 3.4: Satisfaction with Metro Police 2003-2005.
     lead to further streamlining of procedures, and consequently reduced
                                                                                 their behalf, and so on. However it also relates to residents in their
     delays, in the months to come.
                                                                                 capacity as customers, consuming its service offerings. Consumers may
                                                                                 have specific concerns about the efficiency and effectiveness with
     CONCLUSION
                                                                                 which the municipality is performing particular functions. The Executive
     The City of Johannesburg relates to its residents as citizens in their      Mayor elevated this second kind of interaction to the highest level
     capacity as claimants on the right to influence planning and service        when he designated Service delivery excellence, Batho Pele and
     delivery decisions, be informed of how public money is being spent on       customer care as one of six mayoral priorities for his term of office.
84
Over the last five years the City has built a range of systems, processes   consumers. These efforts have started to pay off. The City will build on
and procedures to improve its customer interfaces and relations. And        this foundation in the years to come, continuously looking for new
it has intervened in targeted ways to improve the efficiency of certain     ways to improve customers’ experience of its services.
functions where these have been highlighted as key concerns by

                                                                                              Not yet                     Referred        Not yet
                                                                                            dealt with                    back for      dealt with
                                      New       Approved        Refused     Referred to         under    Decision by        refusal             by
                               applications        under          under       Planning     delegation      Planning          under    Committee
 Month                            received     delegation     delegation    Committee     (cumulative)   Committee      delegation    (cumulative)

B/F                                    239                                         239              0                                         239
July 2004                              460            448               5           20            (13)            22             32           205
August 2004                            490            439             10            25              3             60              2           168
September 2004                         476            426               5           27             21             15             33           147
October 2004                           520            379             28            37             97             48              0           136
November 2004                          526            453               0           30            140             60             11            95
December 2004                          396            294             29            42            171             53             15            69
January 2005                           283            230               3           38            183              0              9            98
February 2005                          575            345               5           33            375             43             14            74
March 2005                             454            337               4           25            463             48              8            43
April 2005                             482            325             21              8           591             44              3              4
May 2005                               486            319              9            51            698             20              0            35
June 2005                              557            300             26            32            897             18              4            45

Table 3.2: Table showing results from introduction of new procedures following the disestablishment of the Development Planning Tribunal in
mid-2004. Source: Report to Mayoral Committee, 6 October 2005.

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