Customer Call Centre
Salford’s Customer Contact Centre recently celebrated its millionth caller – a far cry from the days when customer queries were answered ‘ad hoc’ by anyone who happened to be free.
Once upon a time when the phone rang in an office full of people busy doing other things it was an inconvenience for officers to have to pick up a ringing telephone when in the middle of an unrelated administrative task.
The result was the development of a professional customer services function in Salford and building a culture of ‘customer service professionalism’. Part of this was recognising that not everyone can deal with customers professionally by telephone - and that those who can should be trained to deliver a top class service.
Based in an unprepossessing building, the contact centre was built piece-by-piece by adding in one service at a time. The first service was environmental services such as rubbish, recycling and pest control, followed by council tax and benefits, housing benefits, registrars, job applications.
The most recent service to be added is free school meals enquiries.
A ‘small company culture’ has emerged in the customer services function with a specific customer focus which has proved highly successful.
There are now swift call response times. The aim is to answer 70% of incoming calls within 30 seconds and our monthly customer surveys show satisfaction rates to be consistently above 90%.
Customer relationship management
Salford also relies upon an in-house customer relationship management (CRM) solution named Citizen. This Oracle-based package was developed to create a bespoke solution that provides a variety of functions including customer records, service information and legacy integration. Citizen shares data with many key packages including the council's SAP, benefits and council tax systems.
Citizen has been a key part of the jigsaw which has transformed customer services in Salford, but other pieces of that jigsaw have been staff development, outreach work, web site improvements and ICT in the community – all of which work together to produce a whole picture of customer-focused service in Salford.
In every case, customer services takes both front office functionality and staff from the prior-service directorate. It grows with every new service. An important point of principle for this growth is that staff volunteer out of their old organisational unit and into customer services.
John Tanner, Head of Customer Services, explains: “They have to feel it is right for them, as we have to feel they are right for us. I spend quite a lot of time just taking staff from other services round the contact centre and explaining to them what we do and how we do it. Those that get excited by the vision will volunteer - we sometimes have to turn people away.”
Every new service is subject to a business process re-engineering (BPR) programme. This highlights an important link-up between the customer services operation and Salford’s e-government programme.
“We are not looking just to replicate old services, but to carry out new processes with benefits for the customer,’ explains John Tanner. BPR helps the city council to go for a win-win, combining better front-end services with more efficient back-office processes.
Working with other agencies
As well as working with internal departments members of the staff development group now work with a whole range of other agencies including:
Welfare Rights, Housing Advice, New Prospect Housing, Age Concern, Jewish Community, Citizens Advice Bureau, CAB Hope Hospital, DWP Pensions, DWP Job Centre Plus, Housing Associations, accredited landlords, and the Primary Health Care Trust. One of the most exciting projects we are currently working on is the LIFT project - a joint intiative between Salford City Council and Salford Primary Care Trust working to ensure that health issues are not dealt with in isolation, but instead in a way which is inclusive and responsive to the wider needs of the community in which they are located.
Who to contact
If you would like to know more about our customer contact centre, please contact Lynne Goslin, External Services Manager by email on lynne.goslin@salford.gov.uk
This page was last updated on 28 September 2007
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