Case Study

	Managing Mission-Critical Citizen Interactions The Customer Challenge Southwark Council recognized that it needed to streamline its business operations. Citizens in need had to contact several different offices depending on what type of services they required - a time-consuming and cumbersome process. The Council, responsible for providing a wide array of services to citizens including education, housing, environmental oversight, local tax collection, social welfare, benefits assessment, and payments in one of the most diverse and disadvantaged communities in the UK, wanted to provide better information, more efficient management of customer requests, and more effective delivery of services through a single Customer Service Centre (CSC). The Vangent Solution Southwark Council selected Vangent to design, build, and operate the CSC and transform the business of the Council in a hurry - the timeline for the project was very limited. The Vangent solution began with the inception of a state-of-the-art contact center located in the heart of London. The contact center acts as a central hub and provides various, readily-available channels for requests - via telephone, text messaging, post, e-mail, and the Web. For customers that are more comfortable with face-to-face contact with the Council, Vangent also runs three one-stop shops located across the Borough. Additionally, Vangent designed, developed, integrated, and implemented a complex computer system infrastructure, including a customer relationship management (CRM) system, for the Council, tightly integrated with their existing strategic business systems. Benefits Vangent's solutions immediately delivered improved performance and quality levels of customer service - and continue to provide value to the organization. Despite the project's complexity and highly ambitious timescale, Vangent was able to provide resounding success on-time. Benefits to the Southwark Council and the area's residents and businesses include: Enhanced service - 90 percent of calls are now answered within one minute and the call abandonment rate is under five percent. Previously, 60 to 70 percent of calls were answered in one minute and the call abandonment rate was 15 to 20 percent Improved customer satisfaction - as independently measured by MORI Better information - the single CRM database that contains a record of all interactions with the Council, combined with advanced data warehouse analytical tools, enables the Council to identify areas of need and of weakness more efficiently. Managers are now able to predict, plan and respond to trends and prevent issues before they arise Job creation - In just a few years, Vangent employed more than 200 customer service representatives and invested substantially in professional job creation within the borough Capabilities Leveraged in the Solution CRM & Contact Center Solutions Download a PDF for More Information