Contact: Michelle Smith, ext 01962 846666 e-mail [email protected]

1 Introduction

1.1 The purpose of this report is to update the Committee on the current performance of Phase 1 of Hantsdirect and planning for the implementation of Phase 2 . The report will also highlight a number of areas where improvements can be made which would both increase efficiency and improve customer service.

2 Phase 1 Performance

2.1 All phase 1 services have now been rolled-out following the opening of Hantsdirect in July 2007 . Performance against the two main quantitative targets of percentage of calls answered and percentage answered within 20 seconds are shown in the table below. In the month of February 96% of calls were answered and 85% were answered within 20 seconds. The targets are 95% and 80%, both of which were exceeded.

2.2 In addition it has been possible to implement the new waste recycling permits scheme which was outside of scope of the original project.

2.3 To date Hantsdirect has received over 213,000 calls. The table below shows the profile of calls since go-live.

Other statistics of interest are average wait times and average time a customer waits before abandoning a call. In February the average time to answer a call was 4 seconds. This is measured from the end of the recorded greeting message until the pick up response by a member of staff. The average abandonment time was 17 seconds.

2.4 These are good results for a Contact Centre in its first year of operation especially as staff are new and still developing experience with the processes and scripts. It does need to be recognised that part of the over performance is due to the fact that we have employed staff for phase 2 and when they are not in formal training they are gaining knowledge by answering live calls. As phase two services go-live we would expect to see some of these figures reduce however at this stage anything over 90% is above private sector comparable performance.

2.5 The area that is currently still of some concern is e-mails. This is due to a number of factors. These are all being addressed and staff are working very closely with colleagues in the Environment Department to review the procedures. A programme of training has been developed and is being implemented and the skills required for e-mails will form part of the testing when recruiting new staff.

2.6 There is still much work to do on the management information side. For example we need to be able to measure the percentage of calls that are dealt with at first point of contact. This is likely to become increasingly important as we are measured on the number of avoidable contacts a customer has before their query is resolved.

3 Fulfilment

3.1 This is the activity of completing that part of a process which isn't done at Hantsdirect . These are administrative and clerical processes that do not require a specialised professional input. To date over 7000 waste permits have been dispatched and in excess of 20,000 Blue Badge will be dealt with in a year.

3.2 Fulfilment is based at Winchester Information Centre and to date the operation has been managed with few extra resources. This has been achieved by utilising spare time in Winchester Information Centre as a result of the phone calls being taken by Hantsdirect. A small group has been established to assess the volume of activity likely to be generated from phase 2 services and to link to the work being done on facilities management.

4 Phase 2 Progress

4.1 The Museums service, fostering and adoption and childrens' information service have now all gone live. Phase 2 is proving challenging The overall approach to the roll-out of the services is based on managing customer risk and managing what is achievable within both the Contact Centre and the business. For this reason the roll-out will be staged in terms of complexity, functionality and geography and is planned to fit with the needs of both Adults and Children's services..

4.2 The proposed go-live dates for Phase 2 services will be from 15 May 2008, running through to the beginning of August. However depending on how smoothly the roll-out runs the live dates could be brought forward.

5 Performance Improvements

5.1 In addition to the quantitative performance measures we are also working on the development of qualitative performance measures. This will include customer satisfaction surveys, data quality monitoring and monitoring of calls. We want to be able to provide departments not only with the re-assurance that service standards are being delivered but to be able to provide customer information and feedback to help in the planning of service improvements

5.2 What has become increasingly clear is that there needs to be a good on-going working relationship between the `front' and `back' office so that each sees the other as integral to good customer service delivery. Particular areas where this is key are maintaining the knowledge base, developing service standards and on going support for training.

5.3 One area that has been identified which would have benefits is in relation to being more explicit about service standards and managing customer expectations. This will also help when targets are set for the number of avoidable contacts. When a customer calls to report something then if we can give an indication of when the issue that they are calling about will be dealt with the less likely they are to phone back . There may be some issues reported which would never be dealt with and in those cases it is equally important that we inform customers, giving the correct contextual information, why this is the case.

5.4 Implementing a Contact Centre has been a fundamental change in the way in which the County Council manages its interface with the public. There have been a lot of lessons learned since the initial go-live which are being addressed in the on-going implementations. It is important to recognise that customer handling requires specific skills and when fully operational we will have a well trained group of staff who specialise in this area of work.

6 Recommendations

6.1 The Committee is asked to note the progress that has been made to date