The 2008 Contact Centre Innovation Awards were presented at the Contact Centre Planning 2008 conference on 29th April in Manchester.

The prestigious Contact Centre Innovation of the Year Award 2008 was presented this week to EDF Energy for using analysis of the root causes of customer contact to halve workload in key areas and create a ground-breaking end-to-end service for new customers. The planning team involve advisers in creating and using bespoke end-of-call surveys to pinpoint areas where process or product changes can most improve results and establish a baseline for measuring the success of business cases for investment or service development.

“This has totally changed how managers see planning”, explains Penny Wright, Resource Planning Manager at EDF Energy. As Su Martin, Head of Marketing Operations and Customer Experience, confirms, “it’s taken us to a totally different level … we don’t just react, we plan”. Glen Ewing heads New Customer Acquisitions, who have developed the pioneering end-to-end service in the Pontoon department. “It’s changed the business and how we make decisions”, he comments. “I think the Internal Investment Board was surprised. It made them realise that they need a different approach”.

“Making life easier for customers, who currently need to make repeated or unnecessary calls, is still the biggest challenge for customer-focused organisations”, comments Paul Smedley, Executive Director of the Professional Planning Forum, the Award’s organisers. “The successes at EDF Energy demonstrate the outstanding results that are possible for contact centres when they systematically prevent the service or communications failure that otherwise forces customers to call”. Project work has led to reductions of 50% in direct debit queries and 60% in the billing helpline – increasing customer loyalty by 80% and freeing up time for 1:1’s and team meetings.

The award was presented at Contact Centre Planning 2008, the Professional Planning Forum’s seventh annual conference in Manchester on 29th April. Almost 500 industry specialists gathered for the Gala dinner and the two-day conference at which all the award winners presented their achievements.

The following awards to recognise innovation in specific areas were also given:

The Management Information Innovation Award went to Carphone Warehouse for a rapid transformation of MI that gives visibility to the customer experience and has developed a coaching culture within the contact centre. The new reporting platform is outperforming external specifications at a fraction of the cost and saving £1.5m p.a. in Microsoft licences alone.

The Resource Planning Innovation Award was presented to Vodafone, for taking well-established call centre planning techniques and applying them in the wider organisation, to achieve 18% sales growth and 16% efficiency gains in the retail stores in the Czech Republic, at no extra cost.  This approach is now being rolled out across the 340 UK stores, affecting over 1,500 employees.

British Gas Services gained the Innovation Award for Integrated Planning for a resourcing strategy that joins together recruitment, training and resource planning. In just one year, the centres have cut churn by 20%, boosted new starter quality scores by nearly 60%, and increased employee satisfaction by 6%.

The Innovation Award for Lifestyle Planning went to Orange UK for Your Time, creating new lifestyle shift options, to attract and retain a deliberately diverse mix of employees, involving radical changes to recruitment, induction training and management practices on the operational floor.

Canterbury City Council won the 2008 Public Sector Innovation Award for a uniquely flexible approach to home working and job variety, supported by integrated planning for both front and back office.