Greenwich Council is extending the hours of its Corporate Contact Centre and implementing new technology, including AI integration, to improve customer service for residents.
The Organisation and Communities Scrutiny Panel heard on Thursday, 20 November 2025, that the Contact Centre's opening hours have been extended to 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. to provide enhanced access for residents. The council has also procured an upgrade to its Contact Centre technology that includes modules for scheduling advisors based on call arrival patterns, quality monitoring of 100% of calls, and a PCI compliant payment module for recording all calls.
The changes are part of a wider effort to improve customer service and integrate digital solutions. According to the Customer Services Performance and Review Monitoring report, the council is prioritising the Rethinking Customer Service programme, which aims to integrate digital solutions across the Contact Centre and wider customer service operations.
The panel noted that overall contact volumes rose by 9%, which was attributed to the inclusion of Responsive Repairs calls into the daytime operation. Customer Service has assumed responsibility for the Responsive Repairs service, and training has been undertaken to merge the roles of Contact Centre advisor and Birchmere Technical Administration staff. The anticipated impact of merging the roles is to provide tenants with a single phone number for all repair-related queries, simplifying access and streamlining service delivery, according to the report.
The report also noted a decline in some performance metrics compared with the previous year. Specifically, the percentage of abandoned calls increased from 18.6% to 24.4%, and the average wait time to answer increased from 5 minutes and 1 second to 8 minutes and 5 seconds, as detailed in Table 1 of the Customer Services Performance and Review Monitoring report. This decline was linked to the Contact Centre operating with a higher-than-normal vacancy level to support the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS).
Measures have been implemented to mitigate the impact on performance, including a targeted recruitment campaign, additional Fixed Term Contract advisors, a review of call routing and queue efficiency, and a training programme to support the move toward a fully blended contact centre.
Councillor Joshua Ayodele, Chair of Organisation and Communities Scrutiny Panel, led the meeting, where panel members also reviewed Members Casework Performance and Review Monitoring and discussed the commissioning of future reports. Nwanne Uma was the Scrutiny Officer for the meeting.
