Corby pool users complaints about customer service upheld by council

One parent said she 'felt taunted' by staff after her sons was refused a diving session because they were late.

The council is still investigating one incident in which a parent was unhappy with the service given by staff to their daughter at her first swimming lesson.

Altogether 10 complaints were upheld over the past six months and three were similar complaints against pool staff.

One user’s complaint involved the behaviour of ‘very rude staff’ and a parent reported that she had ‘felt taunted’ by pool staff after her son was not allowed into a supervised diving session after arriving late.

The authority has handled the incidents by speaking to the staff involved, requesting their demonstrate good customer service and has apologised to those who complained. Altogether the pool provided 48,000 swimming lessons in October.

A spokesman said: “Corby Council thrives on good customer service and we are pleased that compliments in the last six months have risen compared to the previous report. We are sorry to those whose experience at Corby East Midlands International Pool was not as positive as they would like, and we can assure that the issues have been raised with staff. As always we will continue to work with employees to ensure that we provide positive customer service throughout the authority.”

The same report – which will be discussed by the council’s audit committee tomorrow night – highlights that there were 197 compliments about the council’s services, with 158 in the culture and leisure department.

Of the ten upheld complaints, five concerned the housing and neighbourhood services. One person had complained after a bad job on a fence repair and another had been unhappy with delayed boiler repairs.

The number of overall complaints over the past six month period was 63, up by two on the previous six months. However only ten were upheld compared to 18 the six months before.