British Gas is rolling out a call monitoring service to help reduce customer defections and assess training needs for contact centre staff.

Improving client retention and loyalty and promoting additional products and services were the main drivers behind the implementation of the system, currently in use by about 1,100 staff at the company’s main call centre in Cardiff.

The software captures real-time feedback from up to 6,000 customer surveys each week, with results relayed to agents and line management within 10 minutes of a call ending.

“We had a broken process before, whereas now we can narrow down the focus on the actual call process when dealing with dissatisfied clients and specific service concerns,” said Matt Baker, customer experience manager at British Gas. “If we are immediately aware of what is making the customer leave us, we can concentrate on ways to improve service.”

Pilots for the Verint-supplied software started in June 2008 and the full rollout is expected to be completed in 2009. Among the challenges faced during the implementation process were employee reactions to the monitoring tool.

“At first, everyone thought this was going to be some sort of Big Brother tool. But we have found that by asking the right questions to clients, we can get a much better insight into the business and give customers the confidence that we are
doing things to improve service,” said Baker.

“But introducing the new software meant a huge culture change, as agents are dealing with their own performance scores. On the other hand, it gives staff recognition if they are doing a good job. Managers can listen to the whole call and obtain feedback easily, so it also means they can make better-informed decisions on coaching and training needs.”