Customer Services Transformation
Client Context
Northumberland County Council was embarking on a strategic change programme to identify council-wide savings of £20m, while radically rethinking the way local public services are delivered in the county in support of its primary objective to reduce inequality. A key programme workstream was Best Service to Customers, identifying opportunities to improve customer access, service and experience.
Our Approach
Through a series of workshops with customer services teams, middle office teams and leadership, Human Engine undertook a customer maturity assessment across six themes: strategy, performance, culture and skills, demand management, customer insight and digital. This established a baseline of organisational performance, the future ambition and opportunities for improvement.
In addition to this, the team undertook analysis of 3,000 calls into the contact centre. This identified that 59% of all calls were linked to failure demand, with more than 1 in 4 coming from customers who had tried to self-serve online but were unable to do so. This uncovered not only a significant source of avoidable demand, but a major risk to the success of the council’s digital strategy and an area of frustration for residents.
We also analysed face-to-face contact and, by breaking down budgets by contact type,
created cost-per-contact metrics for each of face-to-face contact, telephone and webform contacts, creating a costed evidence base for the customer access strategy.
Outputs and Outcomes
Creation of a customer access model with online self-service as the first point of contact but building in capacity to support people face-to-face or reducing the risk of crisis through outbound preventative contact.
A programme of work to deliver the new access model including workstreams on customer services integration, better use of customer insight, creating proactive preventative customer services and reimagining digital customer services.
Identified savings of between £3.5m and £4.65m to be delivered through contact centre integration, reduction of failure demand and digitisation of customer transactions.
Costed investment case to underpin the transformation, including the need to invest in in-house digital capability.
Client Feedback
“Human Engine understood that customer service is not just about transactions but is about the quality of services and improving the lives of residents. The new target operating model will address fragmentation, help us work holistically to support customer needs and reduce cost through resolving failure demand. Their approach to engagement was comprehensive, involving a wide range of stakeholders including from the Customer Services team up to senior leadership.”
Chris Thompson
Director of IT and Digital
About Us
Human Engine is a leading management consultancy with specialisms in strategy, transformation, digital, commercial, procurement and projects.
Founded in 2018, we have partnered with more than 50 local authorities, central government, NHS organisations and national charities to help transform their strategies, operations and cultures.
Our mission is to help individuals and organisations to do the best work of their lives. We do this by blending first-hand, practical experience of the problems we help our clients solve with award-winning consulting expertise and an approach based on trust, collaboration and partnership.