The new Contact Centre was set up in 2006 at the main Council offices, replacing an earlier centre that handled mainly waste and housing repairs calls. Since opening, the centre has been expanded to take on several front-line services, as well as handling all switchboard enquiries. And at the same time as the contact centre was being set up, Daventry District Council created a One Stop Shop for the delivery of face-to-face customer service - with the new facility powered by a Lagan Enterprise Case Management (ECM) solution.

In 2009, the Council upgraded the telephony solution used within its Contact Centre to the Macfarlane CallPlus solution. The Macfarlane system, installed in March 2009, is integrated to the Council's3Com VCX telephony system and delivers a range of advanced contact centre capabilities including intelligent call handling, call recording, management information, interactive voice response and computer telephony integration to the Lagan ECM system.

Together, the One Stop Shop and enhanced Contact Centre give the Council a flexible and advanced facility to meet customers' needs. The Council's 12 customer service staff are multiskilled to operate across the Contact Centre, One Stop Shop and 'Meet and Greet' functions - as well as support staff at the Council's four information services based in rural areas of the district.

"We've been impressed with the Macfarlane system," says Liz Grantham, Customer Contact Manager at Daventry District Council. "It has enabled us to get to know our customers better, and has contributed to higher staff morale. That's because previously we had no idea how many people were waiting in the call queue, or how long they had been waiting. Now, we can see real time queue stats and there's a real ambition on the part of staff to answer every single call and deliver the best service possible." Daventry District Council's Customer Advisors currently handle around 7,000 calls a month, although this will increase dramatically as new services are transferred to the centre. Over a two-year period, the Council plans to bring all front-facing Council services into the centre - including Housing Advice, Housing Options, Revenues and Benefits, Additional Environmental Health services, and Concessionary Fares as well as providing FAQs on a myriad of other regularly used services.

To support this expansion and improve service quality, the Council has enabled a number of features to the Macfarlane system including skills-based routing, call monitoring and customer call-back - and will be providing other Council-run premises (such as the Abbey Advice and Resource Centre) with access to the system. The Council also plans to more tightly integrate its Lagan Enterprise Case Management (ECM) solution to Back Office systems in areas such as Environmental Health.

"We're delighted to have been selected for this project by Daventry District Council and excited at the prospect of supporting the Council through its two year development road map" said William Gray, Managing Director, Macfarlane Telesystems.

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Autor(en)/Author(s): Michael Gray

Quelle/Source: TMC Net, 08.06.2009

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