EIP Mailtalk
Mailtalk is an email service used by EIP members to pose and respond to questions on a variety of subjects related to customer service. One example is given below. In the members area of this web-site is an archive of more than a hundred member-contributions.
Discussion starts when somebody poses a question by email to » members@eipdg.org. Mail is vetted by the group's moderator before being forwarded. Recipients have the choice between replying to the group as a whole and private mail to the originator. We ask members to summarise the most interesting threads, as happened in the case below:
Resolution at the first point of contact
Information collated by Jo Herlihy from mailtalk discussion about Cut-off Points.
I posted the following question to the EIP website on 19th January 2005.
Below is a summary of different positions and views received back, some of my own thoughts in relation to this and finally the actual responses received in full.
Summary Statements
- "An enquiry is resolved if the customer does not need to speak to anyone else or make any further contact with an officer."
- "We will equip customer facing staff with sufficient information (and links to back-office systems) to enable them to fully resolve 80% of calls without handing them off to the back office."
- "The customer only had to ring once to get a resolution."
- "Processing of query so customer does not need to return."
- "Interactions fall into three groups:
- Request for anonymous information
- Request for personal information (will entail authentication)
- Transactional (will entail back office process and fulfilment)"
Quick Links
» Sheffield (Alt-4) » Hammersmith & Fulham (Alt-5) » Hampshire (Alt-6) » Wirral (Alt-7) » IDeA (Alt-8)
Some of my own thoughts
Peter Byard, IDeA, response was helpful as it poses a way for a council to agree how they define resolution at the first point of contact.
- Information - it is likely that many will be happy with delivering on this
- Request for Personal Information - people may not be sure about this one as delivery will depend on more sophisticated systems being in place
- Transactional - people may be happy with this if taking the enquiry and logging it counts as resolution but not if it covers the actual delivery of the request.
I presume that current definitions of what constitutes 80% resolution at first point does not cover these 3 levels of interaction and the question is whether it should or not
It may be that in many cases, services are delivered and therefore customers are satisfied and their demand has been met (Sheffield’s approach of sampling may be an approach others can adopt to produce initial evidence).
However, if the first point of contact covers all services and is a large authority, it may not be obvious or easy to prove that the customer demand was actually satisfied. How will the initial first point staff know, for example, if the customer does chase up calls direct to the service department? It may be that Sheffield’s approach demonstrates this very rarely happens but I suspect we would not currently be able to produce such evidence.
Moving to a single point of access, away from multiple numbers, is likely to have delivered significant benefits to the public regarding how to contact the council in the first instance.
However, the emphasis on identifying what the customer wants, back office integration, CRM and workflow does mean that the original aim of e-government are only now starting to come to the top of the agenda.
This may mean that authorities may need to reappraise their definition of delivery at first point of contact.
I also suspect that the discussion on what constitutes 100% e.g. what is delivered through single access points, direct dial etc is not yet resolved.
Full responses
Sheffield
It may be that other actions need to happen, but these will have already been set in motion by the Customer Service Advisor who dealt with the enquiry.
Alongside this we map the end to end process for a random sample of customers to see how things go until their issue is completely resolved. (e.g. have they received their disabled parking badge? Or has their window been repaired?)
From Jo Hallam
Hammersmith & Fulham
What we mean by this is that we will equip customer facing staff with sufficient information (and links to back-office systems) to enable them to fully resolve 80% of calls without handing them off to the back office. We are implementing a CRM system which will give us a 360 degree view of customer transactions, with back office functions updating the 20% of calls which have been passed to them when requests are fully resolved. When this is in place a call will not be deemed to be resolved until it has been closed by the back office. We are some way off from this as yet! So we have yet to prove the 80/20 rule.
From Lorna Smalley
Hampshire
This may include say, a request to mend a streetlight which includes a back office process and a three week turn around. However, the request was put in place the minute the call was made and the customer didn't have to ring back. Also include a customer who rings and asks to be put straight through to a professional where relationship already exists e.g. a social worker, providing a procedure is in place to make sure that the call is picked up by the right person and the caller doesn’t end up with the wrong person or getting an answer phone.
Calls that are not resolved straight away include:
- a request to talk to a professional who is not available and a call back is arranged
- a request where we don’t yet have a procedure in place and have to investigate and then ring back the customer.
From Teresa Leahy
Wirral
However, the Corporate plan has the following comment: "Help Line, the Council’s new call centre, went live in February 2003. We will expand the range of services provided by Help Line over the next two years until at least 80% of all calls are satisfied at the first point of contact."
This poses some problems:
- What constitutes 100% (of which 80% is the target)?
- What do we mean by satisfied?
- What do we mean by first point of contact – switchboard, direct dial?
- Should we use IVR (press one for …)?
- Do we want just one number for services?
- Is it just about calls? – suggest we leave this for now?
From Julie Williams
IDeA
Interactions fall into three groups:
- Request for anonymous information
- Request for personal information
- Transactional
Requests for anonymous information are requests for information where you don't need to know who the person is. "Who is the councillor for this ward?", "What time does the leisure centre open?"
Personal information is more difficult because you need to identify and authenticate the customer before giving them information that is specific to them: "What’s my council tax balance?", "When will I get an answer to my request for planning permission?". However, the criteria for resolution at first point of contact stay the same:
The final section of transactions is the most complex of all and here the definition of resolution will change subtly. Whilst many transactions - like payments or purchases - can adhere to the same criteria as above, some transactions will fire a back-office process - like an application for housing benefit, for example.
Here the definition of 'resolution' becomes more challenging. If I'm applying for planning permission is the interaction resolved when my application is handed to the back office for processing? or is it resolved when the customer get their first benefit cheque?
From Peter Byard
Thanks for the input from:
Jo Hallam, Sheffield
Julie Williams, Wirral
Lorna Smalley, LBH&F
Teresa Leahy, Hampshire
Peter Byard, IDeA
Jo Herlihy
Nottinghamshire County Council