Newport City Council identifies integrated Workforce Optimisation approach as key driver behind National Customer Service Award success

Successful Workforce Management and Agent Performance Optimisation projects prove key factors behind Newport’s selection as “Customer Service Contact Centre of the Year”

LONDON – 6 January 2005 – According to Newport City Council’s Contact Centre Manager, Tony Curliss, it’s the Council’s commitment to an integrated Workforce Optimisation approach that has been the key driver behind Newport’s recent National Customer Service Award success. Newport City Council won the prestigious award for Customer Service Contact Centre of the Year (up to 100 seats), against strong competition from leading private sector contenders such as Coutts & Co, Experian and the HealthSure Group.

“It’s great to win national recognition, particularly as it sends a very strong signal that it’s possible for public sector organisations to set the standard when it comes to delivering exceptional customer service levels,” commented Tony Curliss. “When we started our contact centre project we did an independent survey that showed that 86 per cent of Newport residents preferred to contact the council by telephone. Disturbingly, 45 per cent of those incoming calls were being abandoned.

“Since then we’ve worked closely with our specialist contact centre consultancy partner, Sabio, to build a workforce optimisation infrastructure that has really turned things around,” he continued.

“The results speak for themselves. After replacing some 99 different council phone numbers with a single number for all enquiries, we’ve made the council much more accessible. We’re now handling some 11,000 calls a week – that’s 100 per cent up on a year ago, and we’re expecting further growth to some 14,000 calls a week in the next year.

“We’ve also succeeded in creating a contact centre environment that works for everyone involved – for our residents, for the agents themselves, and also for the council. We’ve seen our customer satisfaction levels increase, we’ve got lower staff attrition levels, and our sickness and agent absence statistics are way below the national average,” explained Tony. “That’s why we’re delighted to have been recognised by the National Customer Service Awards, who I believe have acknowledged that achieving customer excellence in the public service environment is never always easy.

“Key to the success of our City Contact Centre project has been our close co-operation with Sabio, and our determination to approach the project in a structured manner. It’s too simplistic just to build a contact centre and expect all the pieces to fall into place, so we’ve worked closely with Sabio to build a phased implementation,” he continued. “We first looked at putting a Workforce Management solution in place, and chose the Open Wave system from Sabio. Open Wave has helped us significantly with planning and ensuring agent satisfaction. We then progressed to quality monitoring, and again worked with Sabio to implement a Witness Systems eQuality performance optimisation solution. We’re now using eQuality to record every single call that comes into our contact centre – providing us with a valuable resource to ensure we’re delivering on our customer service commitments.”

“At a time when there have been a number of notable public sector contact centre projects that haven’t delivered according to plan, the success that Newport City Council has achieved is particularly impressive,” commented Adam Faulkner, Director, Sabio. “Winning a National Customer Service Award clearly proves that Tony Curliss and his team are putting the right plan into place, and we look forward to working with the Council going forward as it continues to build on its contact centre success.”

In addition to its workforce optimisation project, Newport City Council is focused on developing its contact centre and delivering on the council’s clear vision for customer service delivery. Tony Curliss sees the National Customer Service Award as an important first stage in this development. “We’ve achieved much of what we set out to do, but as we get further into the project it’s clear that there’s so much more we can do when it comes to ‘joined-up’ customer service delivery. We’re now interested in refining our service to support the council’s strategy with KPIs that help us to deliver against the council’s many financial, customer and internal goals, so watch this space!”

Newport City Council established its contact centre in May 2003, as part of the council’s broader initiative to meet the Government’s 2005 service delivery targets, providing citizens with single number access to all council-related enquiries. As consultants for Newport City Council’s major contact centre project, Sabio helped identify the two key driving factors - service provision and quality of service – that the council needed to address to ensure the success of its major £1.6 million contact centre project.

About the National Customer Service Awards
Established five years ago, the National Customer Service Awards promote excellence, best practice and innovation in Customer Service and Consumer Affairs. A nomination for a National Customer Service Award tells outstanding performers that their efforts are truly recognised and valued by their organisations.

About Newport City Council
Newport City Council is a unitary authority formed in 1996, and is the eighth largest in Wales, providing all major services such as education, leisure, housing, social services, planning and highways. There are 50 councillors (31 Labour, 11 Conservative, 6 Liberal Democrats, 1 Plaid Cymru and 1 other). Newport was one of the first councils in the UK to adopt a new way of working, based on a Cabinet system. The Council employs 7,000 people and has an annual budget of around £220 million.