Council’s Customer Service does not meet expectations

By Peter Whitelaw – Customer Centricity Consultant | 22 March 2024




In the last quarter of 2023, Residents of Port Phillip conducted a customer service survey seeking the views of residents and businesses. Participants were invited through letterbox leaflets and email and a total of 523 responded.

In one part of the online survey, we asked residents to score Council on several factors that contribute to ‘Service Performance’ and ‘Resident Relationships’. Here is their overall rating.
What we did not expect was the overwhelming 82% of participants declaring that they were ‘detractors’ through a Net Promoter Score (NPS) question.

NPS is based on a single survey question asking respondents to rate the likelihood that they would recommend the Council’s service to a friend or colleague. Detractors are unhappy customers who are unlikely to recommend the Council’s services and may even discourage others from using the Council’s services.

These were the main concerns expressed by respondents:

  • Communications, community engagement, consultation, and responsiveness poor
  • Community priorities vs. Council agendas mismatch, insensitivity to residents' needs and concerns
  • Decision making and prioritisation poor
  • Distribution of resources inequitable, wasteful spending on non-essential projects
  • Environmental concerns 
  • Financial management, transparency, and accountability
  • Infrastructure, maintenance, safety, cleanliness, rubbish collection and waste management 
  • Inquiries and complaints handling ineffective
  • Leadership and governance poor, lack of transparency and honesty
  • Parking issues 
  • Planning and development issues
  • Political agendas, ideology, and governance
  • Rates excessive
  • Resistance to change or improvement
  • Safety and crime concerns
  • Service delivery inefficiencies
  • Staff numbers and associated costs excessive, bureaucracy and inefficiency
We do not suggest that this response is indicative of the whole population of the City of Port Phillip, however it does indicate that there are issues that need to be addressed by council. Because the respondents to the survey were self-nominating, we anticipated that disaffected residents were likely to be willing to participate so that they could send a message to council.

We thank those who participated.