NETCALL SUCESS STORY / WANDSWORTH BOROUGH COUNCIL & LONDON BOROUGH OF RICHMOND UPON THAMES

Councils Enrich Experience with Multi-channel Engagement

Councils improve customer experience by offering instant agent response through webchat and automating the setup of direct debits.

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IMPACT & OUTCOMES

1.

11% of contact as webchat

2.

Automated direct debits and refunds

3.

Efficiencies saved in staff processing time

Brief

Wandsworth Borough Council and the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames have established a distinctive joint staffing model, emphasizing innovative service design and novel approaches to fostering a positive work environment. Together, they form the largest staff group in London’s local government. Their shared staffing agreement (SSA) enables them to collaborate in delivering essential public services. This includes merging both customer service departments to create a single contact centre that serves residents from each borough.


Wandsworth was using an earlier version of Liberty Converse, Netcall's omnichannel contact centre solution, and were eager to upgrade to the latest digital communication features that Converse now provides. Richmond used a different solution, which they wanted to replace but lacked financial backing for. The SSA-enabled Richmond to join Wandsworth in transitioning to Converse.

 
About Wandsworth Borough Council
  • Services 329,746 residents
  • 155,490 households
 
About London Borough of Richmond Council
  • Services 198,006 residents
  • 85,700 households

Introducing webchat – and a host of extra functionality

The councils were keen to implement webchat to decrease the number of routine inquiries handled by agents over the phone and to allow an agent to handle several conversations simultaneously. They also aimed to facilitate remote work for their teams, as they were all currently based on-site. Following an initial pilot, they started deploying Converse across customer services and various other service areas.

 

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“Liberty Converse is much more editable and customisable than any other system I’ve ever used before. I especially like that I have my own customised dashboard, which I created to show exactly what I need to see – my entire team of 100 staff and all queues on one screen. Plus, the different widgets that you can add in means that it’s so easy to adapt when something else becomes important. That’s also been helpful for rolling out other teams, because everyone wants something slightly different.”

Simon Batchelor
Head of Customer Services, Wandsworth Borough Council

Solution

Opening up chat

The councils were eager to implement webchat functionality and utilise Netcall's Liberty Converse’s conversation flows and text snippets for automated responses and prompts. This approach saves agents time as they no longer have to type lengthy answers repeatedly. Finding the setup straightforward, they trained a team member to extend this functionality to other areas of the contact centre.

Automated answers help with frequently asked questions that are simple and factual to resolve.

They also use a simple chatbot to ensure conversations are directed to the appropriate agent. For instance, if a caller types, “I’ve had a council tax reduction, but it’s not yet shown up on my bill?” an automatic response of “Why is my council tax reduction not showing on my bill – is this what you’re asking?” appears, allowing the customer to confirm. The following automated response provides a pre-written text snippet that answers the question. This resolves the query for the customer without team involvement. If the customer replies, “no that’s not my question,” the chatbot promptly transfers the conversation to a team member to address it within the same chat session.

Webchat was launched for three primary areas that traditionally led customers to visit the council reception: council tax, housing benefit, and parking. Now, customers can have their routine inquiries addressed immediately, reducing wait times and eliminating the need for frustrating and unnecessary trips to the council office. This allows the contact centre team to focus on more complex, high-value inquiries, and enables half of the reception team to work remotely, handling webchats.

Staff can manage multiple chats simultaneously, assisting several customers at once. Often, webchats involve following up on online requests, which are now immediately highlighted to the back office, preventing calls into the contact centre.

The contact centre team reported that they now experience more variety and flexibility in their workloads. Customers appreciate this change: currently, 11% of contact is conducted via webchat on average.

Invaluable call backs

The contact center team greatly appreciates the call back feature.

When the team is unable to answer all calls during peak times, customers are given the option of a call back. This shows respect for customers by eliminating the need to wait in line, thereby enhancing their experience.

Additionally, it allows the team to efficiently manage call backs after busy periods, arranging overtime if necessary to ensure issues are resolved the same day.

Automation of direct debit setup

Wandsworth and Richmond have automated the process for setting up direct debits and council tax refunds – significantly saving time and enhancing customer service.

By utilising a voice form that is seamlessly integrated with the council tax and finance systems, information can be instantly retrieved and processed.

For example, when a customer moves house, the council issues a final bill indicating a credit on their account. The customer calls, selects the refund option, and provides their details using Liberty Converse’s speech recognition. At the end of the call, the system automatically verifies the information and processes the refund, all without staff intervention.

This innovation has significantly reduced the volume of calls to the call centre and eliminated the need for form filling, data entry, and manual processing. Previously, processing a refund over the phone took about 10 minutes for staff. Now, it is completed instantly. Processing a paper form for a refund used to take two to three weeks. Now, everything is handled automatically. The direct debit is established within a working week, delivering excellent results for the customer.

Making remote working easy

A significant number of contact centre agents now operate from home, with approximately 80% working remotely each day. Thanks to the plug-and-play functionality and integration with Microsoft Teams, staff no longer require a physical phone on their desks. Equipped with a laptop and headset, they can handle calls wherever they choose.

The integration of Liberty Converse with Microsoft Teams enhances agent productivity by allowing seamless connectivity with the entire organisation through Microsoft Teams calls and messages within the Liberty Converse contact centre application.

This setup has gained popularity among staff, as it facilitates excellent collaboration and teamwork, whether they are working from home or in the office. Councils can provide an improved employee experience, and for customers, the experience is also improved by shorter handling times.

Voice recognition on switchboard

Wandsworth makes extensive use of voice recognition to manage switchboard calls, significantly reducing the number of calls that switchboard staff need to handle.

In addition to routine calls, when a new initiative, phone number, or service is launched, it’s simple to incorporate new phrases that callers might use. These are immediately implemented, facilitating the automatic direction of calls throughout the council.

This has resulted in substantial staffing savings. Although there is a time investment in regularly updating the phrases, it offers a considerable saving in both time and staff resources.

 

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“Liberty Converse is really easy to use and provides so much insight. We use the evaluation module in customer services to listen to calls, score and feedback to staff. I can see how many have been done for each member of staff, average scores, highest scores. All that live data is invaluable. The ease of pulling reports and information about calls, queues, individual performance and so on really does help with conveying a return on investment.”

Simon Batchelor
Head of Customer Services, Wandsworth Borough Council

Results

Chat-channels

New channels

opened up using engaging, effective chatbots to help customers with services

Hours-saved

Time saving

gained by voice forms processing automated direct debits and removing manual processing

Visibility

Visibility

of real-time data on queues and utilising hunt groups facilitates efficient and swift call placement

Waiting-times

Wait times

reduced by the callback feature that benefits customers and alleviates staff pressure

Faster-resolution

Faster resolution

automated direct debits speed up council tax payments and refunds by up to 3 weeks

Voice-recognition

Voice recognition

efficiently speeds up call routing around the council from switchboard

Instant-reporting

Reporting

boosts productivity and encourages prompt call handling to improve customer service

Customer-Experience

Skills routing

trained staff can be added to prioritise busy services – avoiding the need to recruit more staff

Continuing to adopt improved functionality

The councils are preparing to activate Liberty Converse’s Workforce Management module, enhancing the planning and transparency of staff schedules. By sharing contact centre services, Liberty Converse provides an excellent method to boost operational efficiency, promote digitisation and automation, and consistently improve customer experience.

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