Craven Council revamps call handling system

Local authority dramatically reduces number of abandoned calls

Council has improved customer satisfaction

Craven Council has invested in a new contact centre to reduce the number of abandoned calls and increase citizen satisfaction.

The contact centre at the council’s main offices in Skipton handles face-to-face, telephone, email and web contacts after existing facilities were overhauled and Macfarlane CallPlus contact centre software was installed.

A new service area, Customer and Revenue Benefits, was created by transferring Revenue and Benefits services from a back office department. Waste Management services and Environmental Health services have also been transferred to the contact centre.

The new system provides intelligent call handling, call recording, customer self-service, management information facilities and acts as the main switchboard for the council.

It also provides a virtual contact centre facility, supporting a small council satellite office with call handling facilities in Settle.

Since introducing the system, abandoned calls into the council’s waste management service area have fallen from 20 per cent to three per cent, and overall satisfaction levels with the quality of telephone service have increased according to council surveys.

Some 40 per cent of all calls are handled by the centre - around 7,500 per month.

Around 85 per cent of Revenues and Benefits calls, 70 per cent of Waste Management and 55 per cent of general switchboard calls that are answered within the contact centre, are resolved without having to transfer callers to back office departments.

Paul Ellis, head of customer and benefit services at the council, said: ‘Since we have invested in the new contact centre technology, we’ve found it a lot easier to measure performance and ensure advisors with the right skills are available at the right times to answer customer calls.’

The council is looking to bring other services into the centre, go live with a document management system integrated with CRM and extend contact centre opening hours.