London borough aims to cut down on its avoidable contacts

Havering council wants to reduce the proportion avoidable contacts received in its contact centre from 14% to 6% by 2014, so its staff can spend more time with those in the greatest need.

The council's head of customer services, Jeff Potter, said: "Dealing with queries effectively is a key part our ambitious customer services transformation agenda, and we're committed to improving how our customers can contact us, and ensuring that they always have access to the right contacts with the right information.

“We're also determined to move towards a more agile service delivery environment, where those who can help or serve themselves have the tools to do so - leaving our staff with more time to focus on our customers that require more in-depth services and support.

“At the same time, we're working to achieve target efficiency and operational savings, so it's essential for us to refine our service performance. That's why we're looking to reduce the amount of avoidable contact we receive in the contact centre."

To help meet its target the council has contracted Sabio to provide an integrated customer contact infrastructure. Solutions involved include an Avaya Aura Communication Manager connectivity platform, Avaya Aura Workforce Optimisation - including Workforce Management and Contact Recording & Quality Monitoring, Avaya Aura IQ reporting and analytics, as well as Sabio's own Thin Client CTI application for integration with the council's Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform.

“This technology will help us in a number of key areas - for example, we'll be optimising our workforce management to get closer to our adherence targets, ensuring closer integration with our CRM system, and also using techniques such as Sabio's Thin Client CTI solution to shave up to 15 seconds from the start of each call," said Potter.

Sabio's commercial director Andy Robert said: "Going forward Sabio will work with the Havering team to develop the council's contact centre solution, with increased support for multi-channel interactions such as e-mail and webchat, as well as developing a specialist voice self-service application to streamline the volume of contacts coming into the centre."