Councils improved contact centre
by Hammersmith and Fulham Press Office
27/01/2009
H&F Council is improving the experience for customers phoning the council by transferring its contact centre to a new high-tech facility
H&F Council is improving the experience for customers phoning the council by transferring its contact centre to a new high-tech facility. The considerable technical advantages that the move will bring about will mean highly experienced customer service experts having greater capacity to handle enquiries from residents of Hammersmith & Fulham.
The new larger telephone contact centre will be based in Rochdale, and will mean calls can be answered quicker, peaks in demand will be dealt with more efficiently, and a greater degree of stability in staffing can be relied upon.
Cllr Paul Bristow, H&F Council Cabinet Member for Residents’ Services, said: “Residents expect us to deliver top quality value for money services and the reality is that contact centres can be run from any location.
“By moving to a larger contact centre we will gain some significant economic and technical advantages. This will improve the quality of our service to residents through our ability to deal more efficiently with peaks in demand, as well as saving taxpayers £150,000 a year in operating costs.”
The new contact centre will build on the success of the council’s ongoing customer access improvements. These have included establishing the H&F Direct and H&F Advice centres close to Hammersmith Town Hall; bringing departments closer together so that residents can resolve enquiries without having to visit numerous disparate offices.
Thinking through what residents want and how they access services has allowed H&F Council to react to what the people of the borough want – and this is reflected in the levels of satisfaction expressed by visitors to the new centres. Feedback from the H&F Direct centre shows that 75% of visitors think the service is good, with 50% considering it excellent.
By 2011/12 the H&F Direct and H&F Advice centres will have saved over £10million, with the new contact centre achieving a further £450,000 through reduced cost of operations, increased productivity and accommodation savings.
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