Australian Councils Q3 2024 Call Centre Rankings
Introduction
ACXPA’s benchmarking initiative evaluates the performance of Australian council call centres, offering insights into customer experience and service accessibility.
Our analysis utilises over 80 metrics derived from the Australian Contact Centre Quality Standards, providing a comprehensive view of sector performance.
This quarter’s analysis focused on inquiries related to rates, rubbish collection, and permit applications—critical touchpoints for residents seeking council services.
By using real-life scenarios, our trained Australian-based shoppers uncovered key challenges impacting customer interactions.
These insights enable councils to benchmark their performance, identify areas for improvement, and better serve their communities.
Table of Contents:
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Highest/Lowest Rankings (ACXPA Subscribers & Members Only)
Report Downloads (ACXPA Members Only)
Executive Summary
The Q3 2024 results highlight a mix of strengths and opportunities for improvement in Australian council call centres.
Councils achieved a record-breaking 98.4% of calls answered within the 15-minute threshold, ranking second across all industry sectors, trailing only TAFEs. This exceptional performance demonstrates councils’ strong commitment to accessibility.
However, the Customer Experience score declined slightly to 60.0% in Q3 2024, down from 60.4% in Q2 2024, reflecting challenges in maintaining consistency across key customer service competencies.
Personalisation and rapport-building—key aspects of the “Engage” competency—continue to rank as the weakest-performing areas across the sector.
Easy Access to Live Agents
• Councils achieved their best-ever sector-wide call answering performance, with 98.4% of calls answered within the 15-minute threshold, ranking second among all assessed industry sectors.
• Accessibility scores demonstrated stability, with most councils maintaining strong results and improvements noted in streamlining processes to connect to live agents.
• Average wait times improved marginally, with most councils reducing hold times significantly below sector benchmarks.
Customer Service Quality is Concerning
• Whilst accessibility is improving, Customer Service is decreasing, with four consecutive quarters of declining scores.
• Councils performed best in the “Energy” and “Educate” competency, which focuses on delivering accurate information. However, the “Engage” competency, including personalisation and rapport-building, continues to present challenges.
These results underscore the importance of addressing competency gaps and variability in delivery.
By focusing on key areas of improvement, councils can enhance service consistency and satisfaction while continuing to refine their operations to meet the evolving expectations of Australian residents.
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Customer Experience Rankings for Australian Councils (Q3 2024)
Q3 2024
Q2 2024
Trend
The Customer Experience Rankings reflect how easy it is to connect and communicate with a live customer service agent at an Australian council via their contact centre.
The rankings are determined by the ACCESS rankings (how easy it was to connect) and CUSTOMER SERVICE rankings (the interaction with the live agent) with weightings applied to the key drivers of customer satisfaction.
Customer Experience Council Sector Trends
Customer experience remains a critical overall measure of how well councils meet the evolving expectations of their communities.
While councils achieved modest gains in some areas, the sector-wide Customer Experience score of 60.0% in Q3 2024 reflects ongoing challenges in delivering high-quality, consistent service to ratepayers.
This quarter’s results highlight variability across councils, with notable differences between the strongest and weakest performers.
Despite some positive trends, significant opportunities for improvement remain, particularly in key customer service competencies such as personalisation and rapport-building.
1. Below Best Practice Standards:
Councils achieved an average Customer Experience score of 60.0% in Q3 2024, a slight decline from 60.4% in Q2 2024.
While this score reflects some strengths, it remains well below industry best practice benchmarks, indicating significant room for improvement.
2. Inconsistent Service Quality:
A gap remains between the highest-performing council (Onkaparinga Council at 67.8%) and the lowest (City of Casey at 48.6%), highlighting variability in delivering consistent and high-quality customer experiences across the sector.
3. Opportunities for Leadership:
Even the sector’s top performers, like Onkaparinga Council, have room for improvement.
Progress in areas like personalisation and rapport-building will elevate individual council results and help raise overall standards across the sector.
Key Council Highlights
1. Onkaparinga Council Leads the Sector:
With a score of 67.8%, Onkaparinga Council emerged as the top performer in Q3 2024.
While they set the benchmark for other councils, their performance still falls short of industry best practices, highlighting opportunities for further enhancement.
2. City of Casey Shows Improvement:
Recording their best-ever quarterly score of 48.6%, the City of Casey demonstrated progress in addressing long-standing accessibility issues. However, the increased accessibility appears to be coming at the price of declining customer service, with four consecutive quarters of falling customer service results.
This is often a common observation when organisations focus on productivity metrics (primarily trying to reduce average handle time), which can come at the expense of quality.
3. Monash Council’s Falling Customer Service
While Monash recorded the best Access results of all Councils and low average wait times of 30 seconds, they continue to rank at the bottom of all Councils for Customer Service, having recorded the lowest Customer Service score for four consecutive quarters.
Access Rankings for Australian Councils (Q3 2024)
Q3 2024
Q2 2024
Trend
The Call Centre Access Rankings reflect how easy it was for customers to speak with a live person about their council enquiry.
59 individual elements are assessed, capturing the entire experience before interacting with a live agent, including call centre queue wait times, how easy it was to find the phone number, the number of menu options (e.g., press 1 for this, 2 for that), messaging times, hold music, audio quality, and lots more.
Mystery Shopping calls to Councils are terminated if wait times exceed 15:00 minutes.
Access Rankings for the Council Sector Q3 2024
Accessibility is a critical measure of council call centre performance, ensuring residents can connect with live agents promptly.
In Q3 2024, councils achieved their best-ever call answering performance, with significant improvements in wait times and accessibility scores. However, disparities between the top and bottom performers highlight opportunities for continued improvement.
1. Record Call Answering Performance:
Councils achieved a sector-wide 98.4% of calls answered within the 15-minute threshold, their best-ever quarterly result. City of Casey, with a call answering rate of 88.9%, was the only council not to achieve 100%. Despite this, it marked their best quarter to date.
2. Improved Average Wait Times:
Average wait times continued to improve across the sector, with Brisbane City Council achieving the lowest at 00:14. At the other end of the spectrum, City of Casey recorded the longest wait time at 6:19. However, this too was their best quarter to date, highlighting positive momentum.
3. National Benchmark Context:
With an accessibility score of 96.9%, Monash Council ranked as the second-best in the country, trailing only TasTAFE at 97.7%. This underscores Monash’s consistency in delivering prompt access to live agents.
4. Variability in Accessibility Scores:
While top-performing councils like Monash and Brisbane City Council demonstrated sector-leading results, City of Casey remained an outlier with an accessibility score of 46.1%, indicating ongoing challenges despite incremental progress.
Key Council Highlights
1. Monash Council Excels:
With an accessibility score of 96.9%, Monash Council ranked as the second-best nationwide. This strong performance underscores their ability to consistently provide excellent access to live agents.
2. City of Casey Continues to Improve:
City of Casey showed marked improvement, achieving its best-ever quarterly call answering rate of 88.9% and reducing average wait times compared to previous quarters. However, their overall accessibility score of 46.1% highlights areas that still require attention, including excessive queue messaging, confusing IVR Messaging and providing easier access to the phone number for ratepayers.
3. Brisbane City Council Achieves Fastest Access:
Brisbane City Council led the sector with the shortest average wait time of 00:14 and NO IVR, setting an example for prompt and efficient service delivery.
Thanks to our sponsors, we are able to share this industry data with you for free.
Customer Service Rankings for Australian Councils (Q3 2024)
Q3 2024
Q2 2024
Trend
Customer Service is assessed across five core competencies (Engage, Discover, Educate, Close and Energy) and 18 individual call-handling behaviours directly correlating to better customer and business outcomes.
Recent CX Statistics continue to highlight the importance of interacting live with a customer service employee and the preference to speak to a live agent rather than an automated chatbot/AI, etc.
Customer Service Rankings for the Council Sector Q3 2024
Customer service remains a critical benchmark for councils, reflecting how well they address resident needs across five key competencies: Engage, Discover, Educate, Close, and Energy.
In Q3 2024, councils experienced their fourth consecutive quarterly decline in customer service scores, with the sector-wide average falling to 54.4%, the lowest ever recorded.
This performance highlights ongoing challenges in maintaining consistency and quality across all competencies.
Sector-Level Observations:
1. Lowest-Ever Average Customer Service Score:
The sector’s average customer service score dropped to 54.4%, marking the fourth consecutive quarterly decline. This underscores the pressing need for councils to address persistent gaps in customer service quality.
2. Sector Leader—Onkaparinga Council:
Onkaparinga Council achieved the highest Customer Service Score in Q3 2024 at 61.0%, showcasing consistent strengths across multiple competencies. However, their score still falls short of industry best practices, reflecting opportunities for refinement.
3. Significant Performance Variability:
Scores ranged widely, with Monash Council recording the lowest at 46.9%, highlighting the inconsistency in delivering quality service across the sector.
4. Strength in “Educate” Competency:
Councils performed best in the “Educate” competency, demonstrating their ability to provide clear and accurate information. However, “Engage” behaviours, such as personalisation and rapport-building, remain the weakest-performing areas across the sector.
Key Highlights:
1. Onkaparinga Council Leads the Sector:
Onkaparinga Council achieved a Customer Service Score of 61.0%, leading all councils in Q3 2024.
While they set the benchmark for the sector, their performance still highlights room for improvement to reach best practice standards.
2. City of Casey Shows Challenges in Sustaining Performance:
After achieving their best-ever score of 84.2% in Q4 2023, the City of Casey saw their Customer Service score decline to 59.2% in Q3 2024, marking their fourth consecutive quarterly decline. Notwithstanding, 59.2% was the second-best in the Council sector.
While improvements in accessibility metrics are evident (and have been challenging for some time), these gains appear to have come at the expense of customer service quality and show that the City of Casey is capable of much stronger results should there be a renewed focus back on quality.
3. Consistency in Educate Competency Across Councils:
The Educate competency, which focuses on delivering accurate and relevant information, saw consistent performance across councils, with scores ranging from 72.2% to 79.2%.
This demonstrates a sector-wide strength in providing clear and accurate information to residents. However, gaps in empathy and rapport-building continue to limit overall customer service quality.
4. Monash Council Faces Persistent Challenges:
Monash Council recorded the lowest Customer Service score of 46.9% in Q3 2024, continuing a trend of underperformance.
They have recorded the lowest quarterly score among all councils in every quarter to date and ranked last in 9 out of the past 15 months. This persistent underperformance highlights significant challenges in delivering consistent customer service quality.
Targeted improvements in key areas such as personalisation and rapport-building could help Monash Council close the gap with higher-performing councils and enhance the overall experience for residents.
Concluding Insights
The Q3 2024 customer service results highlight the sector’s ongoing challenges, with the lowest-ever average score reflecting a critical need for improvement.
Councils must prioritise addressing gaps in “Engage” behaviours such as personalisation and rapport-building.
By focusing on these areas, councils can better align with resident expectations and improve overall service delivery.
HIGHEST/LOWEST RANKINGS FOR Q3 2024 (Australian Councils)
The High/Low Rankings below provide a snapshot of the range of performance across the council sector for eight selected metrics—just a small preview of the 80+ metrics available in the full Contact Centre CX Benchmarking reports.
These rankings highlight the highest and lowest scores within the council sector, showcasing the breadth of performance across Australian councils.
They provide an essential view of the gaps in service delivery, helping you understand how your council compares to the best and worst performers.
Additional Averages Included:
To provide a broader context, we’ve also included:
• The Australian Council Sector Average, offering an overview of the sector’s overall performance.
• The National Industry Average, enabling you to compare how the council sector stacks up against other Australian contact centre industry sectors.
Report Downloads & Lifetime Averages
Benchmarking Data for Other Industry Sectors
In addition to the Council Sector information we publish, you can also view Australian Call Centre Industry Benchmarking data for additional industry sectors – click the links below to learn more and view data.
