Customer-centric service is top for local authorities |
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| Management - News | |
| Wednesday, 30 January 2008 | |
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New research shows that UK local authority customer service operations are now entering Phase Two in their development. They are focusing less on gearing up for e-Government, and more on delivering quality service that meets their customers' needs, however they choose to make contact. Paul Skinner, sales director at Macfarlane Telesystems, says that public sector contact centres have been criticised heavily in recent times. The National Consumer Council (NCC) report, for example, criticised government contact centres for the quality of service they provide to poor and disadvantaged people. Investment in technology and partnership working He adds that the study shows that local authorities are heavily focused on improving service quality. They are investing in both technology and partnership-working to improve overall efficiency - a key objective of the recent Varney report - and meet key objectives such as the new NI 14 national indicator that aims to reduce the average number of customer contacts needed to resolve customer issues. Forty-one UK metropolitan and county councils, each serving between 80,000 and 750,000 citizens, took part in the research in November/December 2007. The study was designed and conducted online by Macfarlane Telesystems by means of a detailed self-service questionnaire. Participants were asked to rate the overall quality of service they provide to customers. Local authorities rated Overall Quality of Service at an acceptable 7.6 out of 10, although ratings did vary between different services. Respondents only rated the quality of Housing Services at 6.8 out of 10. "Improving service quality" is considered the most significant challenge faced today, followed by "delivering high first call resolution". e-Gov targets Macfarlane's findings also shatter the common perception that local councils are pre-occupied with meeting e-Gov targets. Local councils rated "meeting eGov and other targets/ objectives" the least significant of the six challenges posed in Macfarlane's questionnaire. The focus on service quality that Macfarlane identified in its research was also evident when councils were asked about the relevance of key objectives for the coming 12 months. They rated "improving service quality' as their most significant objective, rating it 5.2 out of 6, followed by "improving agent performance" at 4.7 out of 6, and embracing "multi-channel working" and "improving first call resolution" at 4.4 out of 6. More customer-centric When asked about prime drivers for introducing new technology into their contact centres, "improving service quality" was again considered the most significant factor, rating 5.3 out of 6. “To become more customer-centric" was also a highly significant factor for local authorities, rating 5.2 out of 6. “To improve CPA ratings" and because of "pressure from Government reports" were much less significant factors according to recipients, rating only 3.4 out or 6, and 3.2 out of 6, respectively. Partnership working was on the agenda of over 80 per cent of the local authorities approached, with these councils rating it 5.3 out of 6 in terms of its significance as a current objective. When asked whether the aim of their partnership was to create efficiencies, this was rated a significant 4.7 out of 6.0. Progress In an indication of the current state of development of UK local authority partnerships, all respondents actively involved in (or planning) partnerships stated that their partnerships were with other councils - and none with other public bodies. Two-thirds of them stated that their partnerships would involve more than one customer contact centre "Our findings show the tremendous progress that has been made in local authority contact centres over the last few years and how their focus on meeting customer needs and on quality is starting to reap significant rewards" says Skinner. He concludes that here is still a long way to go to bring UK council services up to the standards envisaged by the recent Varney report, but that there is every indication to suggest that local authorities are, more than ever, putting their customers at the heart of future planning. Related links Comments (0)
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