National Local Government Customer Service Network is the peak industry association for customer service professionals who are employed within the local government sector.
Conducted annually since 2004, the National Benchmarking Program is a key program to support members. It establishes the standards for the KPIs for contact centre, counter and administration for Local Government driven by the feedback from our members over the past few years, questions continually ask “What are the KPIs for Customer Service within Local Government”.
The Benchmarking Program was conceived as a measurement and diagnostic tool to identify opportunities for improvement by evaluating sector performance and metrics. The benchmarking program focuses on the four cornerstones of best practice customer experience: People, Customers, Technology and Financials. To develop the benchmarks, participants are required to submit over 100 metrics across 60 cornerstone questions.
Member benefits of the program include:
- find out about the KPIs on a National, Metropolitan / Regional and by council size scale across the customer experience (contact centre/counter in regard to wait times/handle times/resolution/processing/channels etc) and operational (salaries/training/budgets etc)
- providing data to support award applications
- identifying and prioritising specific areas of opportunity for improvement
- enhancing our members’ understanding of their customers’ needs enabling them to advocate for more resources to provide time and cost-effective tools and training of their staff
- ensuring their council is an employer of choice by providing above average remuneration and/or work/life packages
- reviewing staffing levels against sector averages
- illustrating the importance and dynamics of customer service within local government
- submitting operating budget requests which are backed up by a national report
- recognising strengths and weaknesses against the sector’s performance
- setting goals and performance expectations
- monitoring performance and effectively measuring change
The Executive Committee has collaborated with the consultant to establish a revised benchmarking program to cater for those councils that would like to be part of the program but at reduced rate for the mini program or the full benchmarking program.
This current program is based on 2021/2022 data.
The Network subsidies the program on behalf of our members.
Mini Program:
This is a high-level only 27 question program for Council’s which may be time poor. Participants receive a report with the medians and means for each metric on a National, State and similarly sized Council. Your individual Council’s metrics are not plotted against the medians and means.
Cost: $400 plus GST
Full Program
All participants are provided with an individual report (Network Benchmarking Report) detailing their annual performance as compared to the average of all participating local councils. The Network Benchmarking Report also includes a commentary about the relative performance of all councils.
Cost: $1550+GST
KEY DATES:
- 30 September 2022: Enrol to participate
- 7 April 2023: Online data entry to be completed by participants. (you may wish to initially use the offline worksheet, prior to entering online). Please note, if you have not completed entering your data by this date, you will be excluded from the program. No refunds or extensions are available.
- June 2023: Mini and Full Program Reports distributed to participants
2022/2023 National Benchmarking Program
If you wish to register and pay for the 2022/2023 Benchmarking Program within the 2022/2023 financial year, you can do so when renewing your membership and adding the preferred benchmarking program as a product to your membership cart.
Downloads
2021/2022 National Benchmarking Program Information including example of mini report structure
