Medway Council contact centre delivers cutting edge customer service

Rochester Castle Kent-based unitary authority Medway Council aims to save £750,000 over 5 years in contact centre running costs, with the deployment of intelligent desktop technology software being a key component of its service improvement strategy.

Situated in north Kent, Medway Council provides the full range of local government services to a quarter of a million people.

As with every other UK local authority, Medway has had to respond to Sir David Varney’s December 2006, which demands improved public sector contact centre performance. Medway Council has implemented its award-winning customer service programme known as Customer First, which won the 2007 Public Private Partnerships Programme (4ps) award for excellence in Customer Service, and was more recently accredited against the Cabinet Office Charter Mark, for excellence in customer service.

Intelligent desktop software, such as SmartPoint, has played a crucial role in Customer First, helping Medway meet demanding stakeholder objectives. These include Varney report national indicators, reducing contact centre running costs and meeting customer satisfaction targets, for example, improving first call resolution.

“Through Customer First, we are putting our customers at the heart of everything we do. Our purpose-designed contact centre, opened just over three years ago, handles a diverse range of enquires including revenues and benefits, social care, and pupil services calls.

SmartPoint dashboards work with our existing CRM and back office systems to help us improve efficiency and customer service. These dashboards provide customer- facing staff with relevant and timely information therefore avoiding the need to search multiple systems.” Martin Garlick, Head of Customer First

Around 70 customer service officers handle over 65,000 calls and 2,000 e-contacts each month and staff a network of five high-street contact points (One Stop Shops). Medway successfully handles 80% of contacts through Customer First on a ‘one and done’ basis and 70-80% customer satisfaction ratings are achieved in regular customer opinion polls – a great improvement on the pre contact centre performance.

According to Ashley Bryant, Business Change Manager at Medway, “Our approach to customer service is based on best practice with continuous improvement being achieved through innovation and creativity. As well as placing a huge emphasis on gaining detailed and regular feedback through extensive customer surveys, we have a small dedicated business development team in the contact centre to ensure that there is a tight link between IT and the needs of the business.”

“Using intelligent desktop software, we have been able to give our Adults and Children’s customer service officers (CSOs) immediate access to our social care database, RAISE and integrate Medway’s HomeChoice service into Customer First with a view into the housing database, Academy. These integrations have enabled CSOs to provide an enhanced, faster and more flexible service to customers because they can resolve enquiries about multiple services through a single system,” continued Ashley.

Looking to the future, Medway is looking to implement a virtual contact centre in 2008. This will allow CSOs to be more flexible in their working environment, e.g. no commute to work. It will also allow more efficient deployment of resources for peak periods such as the beginning and end of the day as well as giving the council the ability to scale back on office premises as required, thereby increasing overall cost savings.

Martin concludes: “Customer First has achieved a great deal and is recognised both locally and nationally as a successful change programme, providing easy and convenient access to improved council services and measurable performance and efficiency gains. It is key to the transformation of Medway and intelligent desktop software will play a continuing role in our ambitious contact centre development plans.”

9 Jul 2008

Filed under Call Centre News