Bucks Council claims it has halved call waiting times from previous year

Buckinghamshire Council has claimed to have halved call waiting times to an average of just five minutes in 2023-2024.

This is down from an average of 10 minutes the previous year, although wait times remain outside the council’s target of three minutes.

The council said its customer service centre had faced ‘unprecedented demand’ over the last 12 months.

Councillor John Chilver, the cabinet member for resources, said the local authority had improved the way it handles enquiries, whether about waste, council tax or the roads.

He told a council meeting: “This has been helped by the steady reduction in the number of calls coming in thanks to our success in diverting residents to other means of communication such as web chat, chatbots and improvements to our website and the ability to do things online.”

Other data released at the meeting, also show an improvement in customer service at the council.

The local authority claims to have improved the volume of calls answered at its customer service centre from 85.2 per cent to between 91.1 and 97.05 per cent over the last year.

The council also claimed that it had not received a single official customer complaint regarding wait times over the same period, while the percentage of calls abandoned has also gone down.

Bucks Council can also be contacted in-person at its offices, on web chat online, or via an online general enquiries form, which is accessible on the council’s website here.