Visit to Hastings Borough Council Information Centre 21.03.2013

Visit to Hastings Borough Council Information Centre – 21.03.2013

Overview Report by ** – Customer Strategy Manager, EK Services.

Introduction

The Author was invited to visit and comment upon the function of the HBC Information Centre, as part of a review of the service being undertaken by HBC. The Author’s role is as a “critical friend”, based on her current experience of maintaining 10 face-to-face contact points for Thanet, Dover and Canterbury Councils and three telephone service centres. The Author’s comments are her own personal opinion and not those of her employers and offered as a perspective of “an ideal world”. There are obviously restraints and considerations of which the Author is not aware, so any comments or recommendations should be viewed as ideas or starting points.

Approach

The Author did minimal research before the visit, taking only a brief look at some limited performance information and without any detailed instructions of how to find the Information Centre prior to her visit. Bearing in mind that (from experience) the Author knows that Housing Benefit enquiries are usually the most intensive/critical for any contact centre, she approached the visit initially as if she was a Benefit claimant, newly moved to the area.

Website Information

The HBC Website gives an easy sidebar link to Benefits and then on to information about “How to Apply” and all the information seems to indicate that direct contact with the Council for advice is the only way to initiate the application for benefit. It gives a telephone number and an e-mail address and encourages a visit to the Information Centre for an appointment. Knowing Benefit customers from several years’ experience, the Author knows that they will invariably choose the personal visit option. The link to the Hastings Information Centre on the website gives the address and opening times and there is a link to a map. The map has a satellite view, but no street view and there are no pictures of what the entrance, the building or the inside look like as a point of reference. This might be helpful to those trying to find the Information Centre?

Finding Your Way

The Author drove to Hastings and parked in the Priory Street Car Park. Upon leaving the Car Park, the Author asked several pedestrians the way to the “Council Office” or “Information Centre” but very few people seemed to know where this was. The Author asked in the Post Office and only one staff member was able to direct her. The Author followed the directions given and actually walked past the Information Centre without realising. Even when re-directed by the fourth person she subsequently asked on the street, the Author was unsure upon her approach to the Centre that she was in the right place. Although the entrance was of a pleasant design, there was a level of uncertainty that the right place was being entered. The lobby did not contain any “welcome” message and the only obvious signage said “Reception & Payments”; but there was no indication of what this was the “reception and payments” area for? Several other visitors looked similarly puzzled.

Reception and Queueing – “The View From The Queue”

Upon entering the reception area, there were queue management barriers that indicated I should wait for one of the three manned positions to become available. There was barely enough room inside the inner door to stand in the queue. There were two people ahead of the Author in the queue, including a young woman with a child in a pushchair, which took up additional space, meaning the end of the queue was nearly in the side waiting room. The Author was very aware that any movement along this short queue interfered with the automatic door and significant movement resulted in the door opening and letting a draught through. The reception itself was characterful and bright with a high ceiling and the Author was aware of a number of desks in a crescent around the rest of the space occupied by staff, over half of whom were busy working on “something” but apparently without any customer in front of them. At least one customer who entered behind the Author was either confused by (or unwilling) to queue and approached one of the staff on the other (non-reception) desks and was re-directed back to the reception queue.

The View From The “Staff Side”

After a short tour of some of the back office area, the Author positioned herself behind the reception and service desks and observed both staff and customers. By this time, the Information Centre was not particularly busy, but there was a fairly constant stream of people over the next hour or so. It is clear that the “pinch point” is the reception desks. Even with a lesser number of visitors, they still arrived in groups, resulting in a short period of queueing for those not at the front of the group. It was clear from the faces of the visitors that, unless they appeared to have visited before, those new to the centre were a little confused as to if they were in the right place and whether they should queue at reception or approach one of the service desks direct. The Author again witnessed a customer approaching staff at service desks and, in effect, jumping the queue. The acoustics in the space were OK; there is not too much noise, nor is it too quiet, so conversations could not easily be overheard. However, a man who was a little stressed at reception could clearly be heard across the space and the Author was concerned about those visitors who may be distressed or upset when visiting the Information Centre. A very helpfulmember of staff took the Author to the private interview rooms, which are located through the security doors. These are much more private, for sensitive discussions, but the Author noted that there are no PC/Workstations ready and set up for use and that, should the staff member feel threatened, the exit is a little convoluted. There are panic buttons fitted and a telephone in each, however. The Author was informed that any system access within these interview rooms was by laptop and as this would need to be set up from scratch each time the private space was used, this would add to transaction times. The Author noted that should any customer get out of hand, they were already the staff side of the security doors and this may not be ideal. However, the quality of the staff observed was such that the Author felt that bad behaviour by customers could be mitigated by experience and positive behaviours from the talented staff.

Also, once “staff side”, the Author noticed a large display of Tourist Information goods for sale in the main reception; along the right-hand wall from the entrance. This display is not properly visible from the reception queue and possibly not displayed to its best effect.

Brief Discussions With Staff

The Author engaged a few staff in conversation. All demonstrated good eye contact and engaged well and were indeed a credit to HBC. Even comments of a more negative nature were offered positively and it is clear that the motivation in doing so was through a sense of commitment to providing the best possible service to their customers. The Author was very impressed with the staff. Without leading them too much, their observations were as follows:

-Queue management at reception is an issue and customers are prone to wander and “queue jump”;

-When queues are long and this keeps the main doors in the open position, it is not a pleasant environment to work in – especially when it was snowing!;

-Queues sometimes spill right out of the doors and into the street outside, even when the queue is not overly long;

-Customers in the waiting area often do not come when their ticket number is “called”, resulting in more confusion and perceived delays;

-Staff sometimes find that the service desks are not “private” enough for particularly vulnerable customers;

-Staff struggle with the different approach needed for Visitor Information enquiries and the more “standard” approach for other Council services;

-Staff find the CRM system slows them down in servicing customer requests, with delays in logging and setting up details apparently taking up to 8 minutes.

Observations

The Author’s observations of the layouts, interactions and movement within the public space are as follows:

-There is a significant “pinch point” at the reception desks;

-Staff at the main reception desks seem to need to move too far away from their positions to collect forms to issue and photocopy/scan, etc.;

-As well as the “queueing space” being very restricted, the four reception positions seem very confined into the corner, when there is a large circular space that is unused? Apparently this is a giant planter?;

-There is not enough signage to reassure customers that they are in the right place and what to expect/where to go;

-The public access PC’s are in a rather awkward and overlooked position in the waiting area;

-The display of Visitor Information goods is not set out to “invite” purchasing and cannot be properly seen from the reception area queue.

-When customers are queueing at reception, there are other staff occcupied in other duties, such as scanning and reading e-mails and this can give the wrong impression to the uninitiated, when there is a queue.

-Overall the public area seems cramped, despite its light and airy feel?

Suggestions

Based on the limited observations of the Author, the following suggestions may be helpful as a starting point:

1) Expectations are key. Even the best contact centre in the world will struggle to cope with “extraordinary peaks” in workload. The Author would define this sort of peak as the situation that occurs at main billing in March each year. Apart from managing leave for this period and pulling in staff from back office, there is very little that can be done with extraordinary peaks and some recognition of that within performance targets needs to be factored in. This will also help motivate staff to know that “normal” performance is different within these peaks;

2) Also re: expectations – tell customers what to expect when they visit. Include pictures on the website of the building and the reception and mention the best times of day to visit. Most face-to-face contact centres get quieter after lunch in periods where there is no “extraordinary peak”. Encourage the use of pre-booked appointments during these quieter periods. Make the signage within the lobby and reception more welcoming and include a list of the services available.

3) Separate Visitor Information from the other services. Not because these customers need to be treated differently by the service, but because there needs to be differentiation to reflect their motivation for their visit. VI customers WANT to be there and need to be enticed to stay and spend. Customers accessing more of the regular Council services NEED to be there, but do not always WANT to be. Their satisfaction will be measured in how quickly they can get what they need and leave, whereas the VI customers need to feel more comfortable browsing. The Council will lose profitability if they do not respond to these different customer motivation drivers.

4) Once VI customers are separated from the rest, critically review each type of transaction performed at reception. A strict limit must be set on transaction length at the reception point and this must be adhered to. Rationalise forms issuing and scanning/copying to make it as fast as possible – every second counts. If necessary have a “halfway” service point (instead of the “planter”?) at which copying and scanning is done, in order to keep the actual reception queue moving really fast. Perhaps even “free” one of the reception staff from the “behind the desk” position and get them to work any queue and redirect. Possibly move the “ticket issue” machines further forward and get the “queuebuster” staff member to only issue tickets and signpost. If money would allow, the Author would recommend reworking the door/lobby layout so that customers come in facing the right hand wall and have a long reception desk along the right-hand wall under the stained-glass windows, giving much more space to move customers along with minimal queueing? This would then allow more display and waiting space in the middle of the large room with the service desks not as visible from the main entrance…… perhaps?

5) Eliminate service transactions that do not support efficiency. Chip and Pin machines are needed for VI customers to make it a much more “retail” experience, but having Chip and Pin so actively promoted at reception is inviting customers to pay very standard charges, such as their Council Tax and Rents, at this reception point. Having closed its Cash Offices, HBC is probably spending almost as much in Chip and Pin maintenance and reconciliation, if it allows proliferation of “in person” payments at the Information Centre. This undermines Direct Debit and the Paypoint arrangements that local shops and businesses rely on for passing trade. The Author believes that nothing is worse than a queue at reception behind a person paying their Council Tax by Chip and Pin when there is a person further behind with real debt and payment difficulties needing advice …… By all means have some Chip and Pin machines on the service desks to enable negotiated payments after advice interviews, to be taken on the spot, but eliminate casual payments. This is another reason why VI needs to be separated.

6) Scanning. The Author witnessed staff scanning and indexing documents at their service desks at quiet periods – which is fair enough. However, at the same time, there was a queue of 6 – 8 people on the telephones in the adjacent back office. If performance on the telephones is also stretched at some points, these customers may not telephone, but decide to visit instead. The telephone IVR does not currently offer the ability for customers queueing on the phone to leave a message for a callback. Whilst this is not something that can work in extraordinary peaks, it is something that can work for normal “in-work” peaks. Scanning and other administrative duties should be separated out from customer services if this cannot be completed during the customer consultation or very shortly after. In quiet periods staff in the service centre could close their position and call back customers who left in-queue messages on the telephones. This may help reduce visits to the Information Centre.

In Summary

As with most contact centres, it is the peaks in workload that cause the most pain. The Author’s suggestions are based on an initial look at the operations and do not constitute criticisms of the existing practices. They are simply suggestions of things tried by the Author previously to wring out every last little drop of performance she could get from the resources available. Some things work better than others only in certain circumstances. The Author has also found that sometimes a “mix and match” approach to performance-enhancing tactics is successful: have as many weapons in your arsenal as you possibly can!

The Author’s Tactics

Currently things in East Kent are OK - performance is at target. However, in order to make the efficiency savings needed, more radical actions are necessary. The Author is attempting to influence the following:

-Closure /restriction in opening hours of some of the lesser used face-to-face contact points;

-The replacement of the CRM system with an e-forms package, so that self-serve forms for customers and forms for use by staff are one and the same thing;

-A ban on Chip and Pin machines within sight of casual customers!!

-No payments taken over the phone other than the automated systems;

-Detailed telephone automation running 24/7;

-Shared phone system between the three contact centres.

To Close

The Author is impressed with the efforts put in to make the one-stop information centre at HBC work and is convinced that significant economies of scale have been achieved by having one focus and one set of resource to cover. Well done for what has been achieved so far and very best of luck with your review!