Call Centre Implementation - Borough Council
Objective – Spirals worked with the project team to develop a pragmatic way forward to establish a customer information centre and to move towards a more customer focused organisation. The project initiation document is based on achieving the following strategic outcomes:- A customer focused organisation.
- Recognised as being among the ‘best in class’.
- An improved environment for employees.
- A significantly better customer experience.
- Delivery of corporate and political objectives.
- More integrated working between the professional teams.
Engagement – Spirals was recommended to the council by a satisfied client. The project is a major change for the council to the current ways of working and involves a significant investment for the authority.
Spirals developed the Project Initiation Document based on pragmatic and achievable outputs and milestones. The early work received very positive feedback from the lead Members and the senior management team. Spirals were asked to continue to support this strategically important work. The project currently covers the following service activities.
- Environmental services
- Housing enquiry counter
- Revenues bill, recovery and income
- Benefits services
- Revenues customer services
- ICT helpdesk (for external customers)
- Main reception
- Planning services
Phasing – Spirals' initial work was to train the project team and to develop the Project Initiation Document. The planning work covered the outputs required for a successful project together with the associated risks and key milestones. Spirals has trained in the order of 50 delegates from the authority.
Due to the successes, this approach has been extended to all projects within the council. Spirals continue to help deliver the project. This includes monthly progress meeting, ad hoc training, coaching and mentoring, facilitation of workshops, process mapping and development of the detailed stage plans.
As part of this work Spirals identified the need for enhanced programme management to co-ordinate the related customer facing projects. Spirals facilitated this process to align the key projects and developed the programme plan for the authority’s Customer First Programme.
As well as providing project management and training expertise to the project, Spirals also undertook a great deal of Process Mapping work to map the processes from the existing, dispersed elements of front line customer service, into a new combined approach for this new service. This generated efficiency savings and resulted in a seamless process that works well. Spirals also provided recruitment support for recruiting the new call centre operatives. This included telephone assessment and psychometric assessment.
Result– The client (Gareth Evans - Head of Revenues) has provided the following feedback in relation to Spirals' work on this project.
‘We wanted to make our customer services more accessible, physically, digitally and culturally. This meant taking a completely fresh look at our customer interface. New software and some building works were commissioned, but the greatest need was for the entire change project to run smoothly and efficiently. Our Chief Executive knew of Spirals and they were invited to propose how they might help us.
The resulting engagement with Spirals was excellent, with the company dovetailing its services to meet our need in every aspect of the project. For example they:
- helped us create a robust project plan at the outset with key milestones to enable us to measure progress.
- Provided practical workshops within which our people developed both the skills and confidence to deliver their part of the plan. Rather than using simulated exercises, people actually learned using our own project.
- Review project milestones with us as they are reached.
Spirals have worked with us throughout the project, both strategically and tactically, providing dedicated, relevant, experienced support.’
Ref: 000029