Case Study

A local authority in Scotland had a small contact centre that had appointed its first contact centre manager. The manager had come from a larger local authority that had invested heavily in training and had benefitted from the subsequent results. The newly appointed manager knew that the level of service, staff attitude, behaviour, and responsibility towards its customers was shockingly poor and wanted to make the maximum impact as quickly as possible.

To improve attitude and behaviour, to increase call handlers’ level of responsibility and authority, to improve service in general and to keep staff on board and even boost morale. This was to be achieved within a maximum of three months in a contact centre where every call counted and staff training days were not part of the way of life!

Initially, Class 1 Consultants introduced short training sessions on Customer Care and Telephone Techniques to small groups over two-hour periods. Then we talked the staff through the Call Quality Monitoring and Customer Satisfaction Score programme which gave them a chance to understand and become familiar with the aims and objectives of such a programme. We sat with the call handlers and listened in to their calls and let them score themselves. We then provided feedback on what they could have done better to improve their score.

This contact centre now rates as one of the very best in the entire country. Call Quality Monitoring and Customer Satisfaction is embedded in this contact centre and staff attitude, behaviour and responsibility is second to none. The customer satisfaction levels for this contact centre far exceed others who should be providing a first class service (but are not) and the turnover of staff is minimal.