HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
HERTFORSHIRE LOCAL AND LIBRARIES CABINET PANEL
TUESDAY 6 MARCH 2012 AT 2.00 PM
CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTRE UPDATE
Report of the Director Health and Community Services
Author: Michael Francis, Head of Customer Service
01992 556994
Lead Officer: Taryn Pearson, Assistant Director
Libraries and Customer Services
Telephone: 01992 556351
Executive Member: Cllr Christopher Hayward
1. Purpose of Report
To provide members with an update on the Customer Service Centre (CSC), following the 6 September report to the Cabinet Panel.
2. Background
2.1 The minutes of the 6 September meeting reflect that the Panel;
o welcomed the report and congratulated the team on the provision of an excellent service;
o requested member visits to the CSC be organised. Further information would be circulated to all members once arrangements had been considered;
o requested that a business card style list of CSC numbers be distributed to all members;
o requested that an email template promoting the use of online services be distributed to all members.
2.2 Since September a series of Executive Member and Member visits have been held at the CSC, with approximately 25 members visiting the centre, receiving an overview of the services offered and listening in to calls. Feedback from these sessions has been very positive and further mop-up sessions are planned and will be promoted with members.
2.3 A ‘Z’ style credit card size foldout sheet for members will soon be issued containing all of our main online services, as well as details of our telephone numbers. Information will also be sent by email to members to assist with email enquiries. Support from members in acting as ‘online advocates’ promoting our online services on www.hertsdirect.org with residents would be appreciated.
3. Customer Service Centre update
3.1 Transition
As members will be aware the CSC contractor transferred from being Vertex to Serco, as part of our wider Shared Managed Services contract, from 1 December 2011.
The transition was very smooth with both contractors working together to ensure a positive and effective handover. Performance levels were maintained throughout this period and customers would have seen no evidence or impact of this change.
Since transition good levels of performance at the CSC have been achieved with most call answering speed times, quality measures and resolution targets being achieved.
3.2 Highways
While the CSC always dealt with public Highways enquiries (of which there are approx 6,000 a month), a proportion of calls were previously escalated to the area-based Highways offices.
From 23 January 15 posts were transferred from area teams into the CSC, so that there could be a higher proportion of enquiries completed at the first point of contact. From now on 98% of all contacts will be received and dealt with in the CSC.
This transition has been effective and work is underway to further refine processes.
The new online highways fault reporting system went live on 6 February (www.hertsdirect.org/highways) with further online services planned to be launched throughout the Spring (e.g. vehicle crossover applications etc).
3.3 Service Improvement Plans
As part of the new contract, there is a wish to develop Service Improvement Plans to achieve service excellence.
CSC and HCC Customer Service managers are drafting Service Improvement Plans – key priority areas are:
o Quality – introducing a new framework and joint work to increase volumes and improve actions arising from quality monitoring. This includes listening in, mystery shopping and adopting a successful quality framework learning from good practice in other Serco sites.
o Email integration with telephony channel – currently enquiries are dealt with by staff not on the telephone – this could be blended and better use of CSC logging systems will result in process efficiencies.
o Data capture and management information review – to obtain relevant management information to support improved customer insight approach – understanding who are customers are and how we can best serve and respond to them.
o Knowledge management – review information and structure of systems used by CSC to fill any information gaps and also ensure it is more efficient to assist advisors in effectively answer enquiries.
o Audit of Customer Relationship Management system – can the CRM database be used or configured differently to support the business better.
o PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance – This relates to data security protocols for taking payments in the CSC. The CSC currently take payments for (some) Blue Badges and bus passes (concessionary travel). This will need reviewing as further functions are introduced as there are additional compliance step to take if volumes increase.
3.4 Learning from others and sharing best practice
Serco are effectively using best practice and experience from other sites they run across the country. Serco and HCC staff have visited some of these sites to see new ways of working in operation and to help adopt ideas within the HCC CSC.
Similarly, we are sharing experiences with these sites and also with other authorities.
Three Children’s Services Local Authorities have visited the CSC in recent months with a view to adopting a similar model of handling children’s social care referrals and requests and for one of these HCC staff spent a week in December training and supporting their staff to implement these processes in their authority.
3.5 Health and Community Services (HCS )
In the period from July to November 11 CSC advisors taking adult social care calls were given more in-depth training so they could help users and carers contacting us more fully on that first telephone call.
This model is being developed further, with a proposal that a further 15 staff with join the CSC in April to enhance the ‘Information and Advise’ first response.
At that time around 180 HCS staff are due to transfer to Serco, as part of the new ways project to support the See and Solve and Service Solutions functions.
3.6 Channel Shift
To improve the customer experience we can offer many services online, increasing access to our service 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Delivering online services also support the needs to make efficiency savings as it is cheaper to deliver services online than over the phone or face-to-face.
This can be demonstrated through this table showing approximated cost per contact (national research):
Channel / Cost (£)Face-to-face / 11.00
Telephone / 3.00
Online transactions / 0.30
Whilst it is recognised that for some services we will always provide elements either face-to-face or over the telephone, the more we can do online, the more we are able to save and thus reduce spending pressures for essential front line services.
To help with this we would encourage all members to promote our online services, available via www.hertsdirect.org
As referred to in section 2.3 there will be a reference guide to support members with this issued shortly.
If members would like further help with supporting channel shift or like to ask for advice or information please contact
An example of this is attached at Appendix 1, showing how a high proportion of libraries renewals are successfully moving from the telephone to either online or via the automated telephone renewals system.
4. Financial Implications
4.1. There are no financial implications associated with this report.
5. Recommendations
5.1. The Panel is invited to note and comment upon the report.
Background information
None
120306 03 CSC Update 1