Helping public sector contact centres meet Varney recommendations
White Paper: Varney and the new performance framework
Case study: Real time customer feedback improves staff motivation at bss
“Opinion-8 is a very useful tool for us. As it provides immediate feedback it’s an excellent staff motivator. We find it extremely competitively priced and good value for money. It fulfils our requirements perfectly.”
- Michaela Marcham, Head of Service at bss
“Because we are already using Opinion-8 we are in a strong position to respond to the Varney agenda for developing customer-centric services.”
- Sue Bills, Contact Centre Manager, Dudley Borough Council
The Contact Council and the new performance framework
The Varney Report 2006 set a challenging agenda for publicly funded contact centres, and the government responded by setting up a new body called the Contact Council, to oversee the implementation of Varney's recommendations. The Contact Council has drawn up a good practice performance framework covering accreditation, performance indicators and benchmarking. By the end of 2008, all public sector contact centres are encouraged to have gained accreditation by one of the existing co-ordinating bodies in the UK, and systems need to be in place to monitor performance across 26 new indicators. Customer satisfaction needs to be rated on a 5-point scale, and customers need to be asked whether they would recommend the service. Those who rate the service poorly need to be invited to explain the reasons for this, and comments need to be transcribed, categorised and analysed.
The Opinion-8 survey system has been enhanced with a number of new features to help public sector contact centres meet the new requirements. We offer a comprehensive package of contact point survey options has been developed, a public sector questionnaire template, and use of a pre-configured pilot survey at low cost for a trial period.
Gaining customer feedback across all points of contact
Opinion-8 survey system offers a comprehensive menu of options in order to gain customer feedback across various points of contact. All responses feed into a unified reporting system.
• Call centre: Opinion-8 allows callers to evaluate the service immediately after their call giving ‘real-world’ as well as real-time feedback
• Office appointments / visits: Customers can be invited to give feedback via a touch screen survey
• Home visits or appointments: Customers can be invited to call a freephone survey to give feedback
• Self-service on website: Customers can be invited to participate in a web survey.
• Email contact: Customers can be invited to give feedback via an Email survey
Public sector survey template
We have also developed a public sector survey template based on the government’s new performance framework and Varney’s recommendations. This survey template is provided free to any public contact centre with the Opinion-8 service, and can be used or amended as desired.
Public Sector Pilot Survey
In recognition that many organisations may want to test the system and see how it would work for them, we have set up a pilot survey which can be made available on a trial basis with no buy-in commitment. Contact us for more information.
White Paper ‘Implementing Varney in public sector contact centres’