Go BackCouncil contact centres need to get smarter
Recent National Consumer Council (NCC) research indicates just how far public sector contact centres have to go before they can claim to deliver truly customer-centric services.
The study, released in January 2008, suggests that many citizens are getting a raw deal from government contact centres. It points to people making multiple calls to resolve an issue, repeating the same information to several different people each time they call, being left on hold for long periods, and finding that promised actions were not followed up.
It would be wrong to assume that these problems are endemic for all customers, across all public sector contact centres. While some central Government contact centres are failing at the basics; many local government contact centres are extremely advanced - delivering rapid, efficient and effective service across phone and other contact channels.
Regardless of their sophistication, however, what all Government contact centres have in common today is their need to adapt.
Firstly, to changing expectations from Local Government. The 2006 Varney Report emphasises the need for public service delivery to be more accessible, convenient and efficient to meet changing citizen and business expectations. It also highlights opportunities to deliver better public services through joining up service provision across the public sector, and to engage more directly with users in the design and delivery of services. Other Government-led initiatives reinforce these messages. The 'New Performance Framework for Local Authorities & Local Authority Partnerships' for example, stresses the need for organisations to truly reflect what communities want - and introduces important new measures such as NI 14 for 'Avoidable contact' that seeks to drive down the number of contacts needed to resolve an issue to improve both efficiency and effectiveness.
Secondly, contact centres must adapt to changing demands from customers. Public bodies increasingly need to communicate with a new generation of consumers such as young school leavers who are as familiar with text, Web and video communications as they are with phone and face-to-face. While this may not be a massive issue today, very soon the need to deliver joined-up, multi-channel, real-time citizen contact will be a pressing one for each and every public sector organisation.
Most local authority organisations are fully aware of the need for change. Indeed, according to research conducted by Macfarlane amongst 41 UK district, borough,metropolitan and county councils in November/December 2007, "Improving service quality" was considered the most significant challenge they face today. "Delivering high first call resolution" was rated the second highest priority.
When asked about prime drivers for introducing new technology into their contact centres, "Improving service quality" was again considered the most significant factor, rating 5.3 out of 6. "To "Become more customer-centric" was also a highly significant factor for local authorities, rating 5.2 out of 6. And when asked about the relevance of key objectives for the coming 12 months, embracing "Multi-channel working" and "Improving first call resolution" were both rated at 4.4 out of 6.
Keeping up with changing customer demands and new customer contact channels will be an on-going challenge. The good news though, at least for the majority of Councils that took part in our research, is that they recognise the need for flexibility and for smart communications - and are now investing in process-change, technology and partnership-working arrangements to bring them up to the standards envisaged by the Varney report and required by NI 14.
By Paul Skinner, Director, Macfarlane Telesystems
Tel: 020 7314 1314
E-mail: pskinner@macfar.co.uk
