99.6% of enquiries resolved at first point of contact

A new Customer Flow Management solution and processes for following up management information has meant a world of difference for Scottish council Renfrewshire. The manager now has accurate figures to prove increased efficiency such as quicker transaction times and as a result customer satisfaction is 97 per cent.

The customer service team pictured above: Left to right is Roberta McFarnon, Customer Service Centre Manager; Councillor Harkins (Leader of the Council) sitting down; Councillor McNally and Sarah Gadsden, Customer Services Manager. The adviser sitting at the back is Anita Millar.

Scottish local authority Renfrewshire serves on average 158 customers per day. A key element of the authority's strategy was to develop a face to face customer service centre which resolves at least 80 per cent of all customer enquiries at the first point of contact.

To ensure the new centre would operate as effectively as possible from day one the council opened a pilot Customer Service Centre first.

The pilot centre resolves 99.6% of enquiries at first point of contact. Feedback from customer comment cards shows an overall customer satisfaction rating of 97 percent.

From 20 to 11 minutes
"Since opening, management information from Qmatic shows that we are constantly improving in relation to the time taken to deal with an enquiry," said Sarah Gadsden, Customer Services Manager at Renfrewshire. In November 2005, 78% of customers' transactions were being completed within 20 minutes of seeing an adviser. This had risen by 6% to 84% in January 2006.The average transaction time in November 2005 was 15 minutes 5 seconds, falling by 3 minutes 10 seconds to 11 minutes 55 seconds in January 2006. The number of 'no shows' has more than halved since November.

Continuous improvement
"Since opening, we have tried different ways of operating our breaks in order to improve our performance over the busy lunchtime period," Sarah Gadsden said. "We have been able to identify our busiest periods and have produced a flyer which is being included in council tax, benefits and housing mailings advising customers of the best times to visit us," she said.

New work process
As a new work process the manager has weekly one to one meetings with team members, where they discuss their individual performance report produced from the Qmatic system.

In particular, they look at the range of enquiries the advisers are dealing with and the average length of their transactions.

"This information has helped us to identify training and support needs and we are already seeing individual advisers' performance improve as a result of introducing one to one job shadowing," Sarah Gadsden said.

The Customer Service Centre team consists of the Customer Service Centre Manager, two supervisors, one team leader and nine multi-skilled advisers who are trained to deal with council tax, benefits and housing enquiries. This team will grow as more council services are migrated to the centre. The advisers currently rotate between three roles:

• Floorwalker – the floorwalker greets customers, directs them to the Customer Service Centre reception, ensures that customers get to the right enquiry desk and resolves quick enquiries
• Reception – the adviser issues the customer with a ticket for the relevant queue and deals with quick enquiries
• Enquiry desks – the adviser deals with housing, council tax and benefits enquiries