Improving customer service is always a focus of Tauranga City Council's Call Centre.

In the past we had a third party contractor manage after-hour calls from customers.

Now, any call to 577 7000 or email to TCC's website will be answered 24 hours a day by one of the council's staff members.

They're located in our Willow St Call Centre. One of the great things about operating 24/7 is the level of service to customers, on things like responding to emails, increases.

For example, any emails a customer may write in the evening to TCC are answered by the call centre team within a short while of receiving it, rather than the customer having to wait until the next business day.

Any matter that needs to be referred to a contractor for repair are referred immediately and any matters which need to go to another staff member – that can't be answered by those at the call centre – will be received by them the next day.

During the next 18 months TCC plans to introduce SMS, web chat and video chat, subject to Long Term Plan funding discussions.

TCC is seeking to improve the level of service to its customers – and increasingly, in this digital age, the traditional concept of contact with an organisation after 5pm being considered after-hours is becoming blurred.

In future the call centre expects their contact centre agents to be sitting in front of a dashboard and being able to assist a customer regardless of their preferred channel of access, including social media.

As awareness of our 24/7 service in the community grows staff expect there will be an increasing amount of contact with them after-hours, as people realise they can contact TCC anytime.

Call volumes on the first after-hours shift when we went live last Monday evening/Tuesday morning were 21.

During the last couple of nights we've received calls about roaming dogs, building issues, rates, a wandering pig and water leaks.

Council receives about 250,000 calls from customers each year.

Thanks to Margaret Batchelar at Tauranga City Council for the above information.