Case Study: Real time customer feedback improves contact centre staff motivation
“ 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 bss’ requirements perfectly.”
- Michaela Marcham, Head of Service, bss
The Company
bss is a charitable company providing specialist contact centre and information services to customers in the public, voluntary and commercial sectors. bss has over 700 staff in the UK dedicated to enabling people to take action to improve the quality of their lives and society through the provision and management of information and advice. For more information see www.bss.org
The Challenge
The government has set publicly funded contact centres a challenging agenda. Following the Varney Review of public services, a new Performance Framework for publicly funded contact centres and helplines has been developed, comprising 26 performance indicators. By the end of 2008, all public sector contact centres are encouraged to have gained accreditation by one of the existing co-ordinating bodies for contact centres in the UK. Contact centres need to have systems in place to measure performance on all the new indicators, and a benchmarking system for comparing performance is to be developed. Within the new regulations, there is a strong emphasis on services being designed around the needs of customers - as judged by the customers themselves. All publicly funded contact centre services need to find a way to gain ongoing customer feedback on the services they provide. At the same time, the government is expecting significant efficiency savings, meaning that any new systems put in place need to be highly cost-effective. As a large scale not-for-profit outsourcer of contact centre services, bss therefore needed to find a way to help clients gain cost-effective customer feedback on the services provided on their behalf.
The Solution
bss chose to offer one of their clients the option of gaining customer feedback using the IVR survey system Opinion-8 from Square Systems. This system allows callers to evaluate the service immediately after their call. Customer feedback is automatically compiled and analysed on an ongoing basis. Real-time reports can be viewed by bss and clients on a secure website.
Staff motivation and performance boosted
With Opinion-8, bss and clients can access performance reports at any time on the internet, to see how satisfied customers are with the services bss are providing. Reports over time allow better understanding of how customer satisfaction varies over time as well as how customers respond to any changes in service. Verbatim comments from customers can be transcribed online and analysed for improved understanding of the customer experience. Results from both web and phone surveys feed into the same database, meaning that the perceived relative value of different channels automatically established. Michaela Marcham, Head of Service for Learner Services (where the system is used) at bss states “It’s a very useful tool for us. As it provides immediate feedback it’s also an excellent staff motivator.”
Value for Money
Whilst many of bss’ clients already have historical customer feedback systems of one kind or another in place, Opinion-8 offers a cost-effective alternative. The new system means that government requirements relating to customer feedback are met for as little as a few hundred pounds per month, depending on the volume of calls surveyed. Michaela Marcham comments “We find it extremely competitively priced and good value for money. It fulfils bss’ requirements perfectly.”
About Square Systems and Opinion-8
Square Systems is a UK-based developer of integrated software solutions for contact centres, and has developed and manages the Opinion-8 survey system. Opinion-8 is available both as a hosted service and as customer premise equipment for companies who wish to purchase the system in house. Please see www.opinion-8.com for more information about Opinion-8, or visit www.squaresystems.co.uk