Appendix 1: Areas where the contact centre could strengthen or enhance its activities

As well as our recommendations, we have noted in this report three areas where, in our view, the contact centre could strengthen or enhance its existing activities by:

Service Express

• more actively promoting Service Express to ensure that best use is made of this service, and looking into the feasibility of other self-service options;

Quality control

• using the Central Processing Unit to more intensively monitor customer service representatives’ actions when new tasks or processes are introduced;
• resuming its mystery shopping programme;

Relationships between the contact centre and the service centres

• encouraging periodic visits between staff at contact centres and service centres;
• delivering training jointly to contact centre and service centre staff, to promote a shared understanding of their roles;
• periodically reminding its staff of the Seamless Service Standards;
• making case managers more aware of the way customer service representatives work, and of the contact centre’s main performance measures and targets; and
• implementing the recommendations from the staff survey report for improving relationships between service centres and the contact centre.