Customers have increasingly high expectations of the public services they receive, with the power to express dissatisfaction in the very public forums of social media.

Local councils need to deal with customer complaints and feedback promptly and efficiently, whilst analysing the results to identify ways they can improve service delivery where customers are dissatisfied with current performance.

A positive culture, in which managers and staff welcome complaints and feedback as opportunities to learn, is a signature of high performing local government services.

Whilst Local Government Ombudsmen across Australia report 'pockets of good practice' from some councils, they also identify the need for further work to improve consistency, performance and culture in the way councils deal with complaints.

This intensive one day masterclass helps Local Government service leaders understand what's required to implement a culture of learning and improvement from complaints in their council.

We'll use Local Government case study exercises, research into complainant behaviour, interactive discussion exercises exploring your own strengths and improvement areas, and the AS/NZ 10002:2014 Standard for Complaints Management to help you develop an action plan to address your council's unique needs.

You'll learn about

The individual action steps you should take to improve your council's complaints culture
Turning complaints into improvements in public service delivery
Practical techniques that create continuous improvement projects from customer feedback
Producing high quality complaints responses that raise customer satisfaction
How complainant behaviour affects your people, processes and public reputation
The roles and responsibilities for complaint management, from the CEO to front-line staff
The 9 steps required in a best-practice complaints management process
Deciding if you're dealing with requests for service or customer complaints
The strategic value of complaints providing better public services
Using the AS/NZ 10002 Complaints Standard to benchmark better complaints performance
Diagnosing your council's current strengths and weaknesses in complaints managemen

Who should attend?

This masterclass is ideal for:

Directors, Senior Managers and Strategic Leaders in Local Government
Customer Service Managers, Contact Centre Managers and Team Leaders handling complaints
Business Change Managers responsible for customer-facing service improvements
Complaints Managers and staff dealing with complaint cases
Programme and Project Managers involved in customer service business change
Quality Managers and Internal Auditors requiring a deeper understanding of complaints best practice

Masterclass agenda

The session uses best practice standards, published research material, presentation content and interactive group discussions to cover the content in an engaging and informative way. This masterclass covers:

1. The strategic value of complaints for learning and improvement

2. Complaints best practice : The AS/NZ 10002 Standard

What the standard means for managing council complaints
Who does what? Roles and responsibilities for complaints
The 9 steps of a best practice complaints process

3. Human factors : Complainant behaviour

Why complainants complain and the dissatisfied don't tell you about problems
Dealing with persistent and difficult complainants

4. Human factors : The impact of managerial and employee behaviour

How managers and employee attitude affects complaint performance
Defensive organisational behaviour: what it is and why it prevents feedback and damages trust
What managers must do to lead a positive, learning culture in complaints

5. Quality in a complaints response

The six steps that affect response quality
A case study practical in local council complaints quality

6. Achieving continuous improvement by learning from complaints

Lessons in change learnt from organisations that succeed at transformation
Best practice in continuous improvement: how to use complaints to learn and improve
Case study practical: Root cause analysis

7. Putting improvements into practice

What's required to transform your organisation's culture?
Case study exercise : putting complaints improvement into practice
Creating an action plan for improving your own organisation

What's included?

Individual masterclass workbooks to make notes in and keep after the event
Refreshments on arrival, morning and afternoon tea and a working style lunch
Reference copies of the AS/NZ 10002:2014 Standard are available for attendees to refer to during the event.
Option to purchase a licensed copy of the AS/NZ 10002:2014 International Standard to keep (select this at checkout)

Feedback from previous attendees

"The workshop was engaging, informative and well run."

"The content was engaging and valid for those who manage customer complaints."

"Was a great course, very happy I attended."

"The workshop was informative and made me reflect on my own complaint handling as well as my team's complaint handling. Jason gave great insight into the Standard for complaint handling as well as techniques to use when communicating with complainants."

A really informative, engaging session. Good mix of how the content was delivered and participants felt encouraged to take part and comment. It is clear that Jason is well informed and passionate about what he does."

87% of previous attendees rated their satisfaction with the event as good or excellent. 97% agreed or strongly agreed that it was informative, presented in a clear and engaging way, participative and relevant to their needs.

About your masterclass leader

Jason has over 20 years experience as an operational senior manager and management consultant working with public and private sector organisations in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. He specialises in improving performance in customer service, complaints management and contact centre operations.

Jason served as Corporate Customer Relations Manager for Birmingham City Council - the UK's largest Metropolitan Local Authority. He has wider sector experience in Local and Central Government, Financial Services, Insurance and Energy and Utilities.

Jason has spoken extensively on complaints management and customer service best practice at international conferences in the UK, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.

He holds a Ph. D in Artificial Intelligence (Genetic Algorithms) and has professional accreditations including:

Certified Management Consultant (CMC)
MSP Programme Management Advanced Practitioner
PRINCE2 and APMP Practitioner
ISO 9001 Lead Auditor

Event terms and conditions

Registration opens at 8:30am for a 9:00am masterclass start.
Refunds are not permitted for this masterclass once a booking has been made. In the event the masterclass is cancelled by the organiser (for reasons outside our control or due to insufficient registrations), a full refund of event fees paid will be provided. Refunds will be limited to the event fee only.
Participants unable to attend after making payment are welcome to transfer their registration to another person without charge, after notifying the organiser of the new attendee details.
Changes: Price Perrott reserves the right to make changes to the event venue and/or content.
Privacy policy: Personal details provided for this masterclass are used only for the purposes of registration and administration. Only participants opting-in to receive additional information will have their details retained for future contact about other events, information and services offered by Price Perrott. Your data is not shared with 3rd parties.

Contact the host of Learning and improving from complaints for Local Government