Taking service delivery to the next level
Becoming a one-number council
East Dunbartonshire Council’s automatic call distributor (ACD) was inadequate and was limiting the service that their Customer Service Department could provide. The Council had an ambitious digital plan. It needed greater functionality to deliver against this plan. They needed skills-based routing, a reporting facility to evaluate performance, increased staff mobility and a scalable system to accommodate their team’s growth.
Without call queuing, messaging between staff and control for management over incoming calls, they could not attain their objective of becoming a one-number council. A call router, enabling all calls via a single number, would streamline contact points for residents and staff.
What is an ACD?
An automatic call distributor, usually called an ACD, is a telephony software system which answers incoming calls and routes them to a specific agent or department within a company.
Staff mobility, efficiency and compliance
The Council researched contact centre solutions and call routers in search of the right technology achieve their goals. Liberty Converse with an ACD module was selected. The speech enabled virtual operator was deployed with the ACD to handle internal calls. Finally, the Council staff had much greater mobility, as calls could be routed to wherever they were working.
The Converse solution was closely integrated with East Dunbartonshire’s CRM system. This reduced the time taken to complete transactions which had a knock on impact in improving customer experience.
It also prevents recording of sensitive payment card data. Automatically. Without this, PCI DSS requirement 3.2 would have been violated. So, this assisted the Council’s in compliance with their PCI strategy.
Call handling capacity
The harsh weather encountered in Dunbartonshire at times, meant that the ACD was invaluable. Staff could work, even if they couldn’t get to particular Council sites.
Converse handles 2,000 internal calls per day. The call router was successfully directing calls around the Council and improving the staff efficiency.
The reporting functionality helped to provide visibility for management and led to an increase in performance metrics. Plus, of course, the Council was comfortably PCI compliant, due to handling telephone payments securely.
A scalable call router to improve staff and caller experience
The Converse solution provided the versatility and configurability that the Council was looking for. This continues to help them adapt to the ever-changing public sector landscape. East Dunbartonshire Council and its staff can anticipate and quickly respond to the increasing demands placed upon them.
The switchboard was brought into the contact centre, so more calls were intercepted. The call router places the call with the right department, without operator intervention. The staff like the system – it’s easy to use and it is taking the strain of handling 2,000 internal calls each day off them. Allowing them to focus on more complex calls.
When call volumes peak, for example, when Council Tax reminders are due or there has been a major incident, the Council can record in-queue messages. This makes callers aware of the reason for the queue and the Council can record specific information or options relating to the issue. Agents have less calls to deal with. They can get to complex queries more quickly. And they have more time to assist callers, which improves the experience for the users.
East Dunbartonshire Council enjoys many improvements in service delivery since Converse was installed. The flexibility of the new solutions enables the Council to push boundaries and continually improve the service they provide.
Learn more about Liberty Converse.
