BATHO PELE & CUSTOMER CARE - 3c
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3
chapter
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
76
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
78and 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.
79BATHO 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
80BATHO 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.
82The 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.
83BATHO 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.
84Over 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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