Councils enhance customer experience with instant agent response webchat and automated setup of direct debits
Wandsworth Borough Council and the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames have created a unique joint shared staffing model, focusing on creative service design and new ways of developing a positive working culture. Collectively, they are the biggest staff group in London local government. Their shared staffing agreement (SSA) allows them to work together to deliver vital public services. That includes bringing together both customer service areas to form one contact centre serving citizens from each borough.
Wandsworth was using an earlier version of Liberty Converse, our omnichannel contact centre solution, and were keen to access the latest digital communication functionality that Converse now offers. Richmond used another solution, which they wished to move on from but couldn’t get financial support for. The SSA-enabled Richmond to join Wandsworth in migrating to Converse.
The councils were keen to start using webchat to reduce agents answering routine enquiries over the phone and allow an agent to manage multiple conversations at the same time. They also wanted to enable remote working for their teams, as they were currently all premise-based. After an initial pilot, they began to roll out Converse across customer services and multiple other service areas.
“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
“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
The councils are about to switch on Liberty Converse’s Workforce Management module, optimising planning and visibility of staff rotas. Saving time and money through sharing contact centre services, Liberty Converse offers a brilliant way to improve operational efficiency, drive digitisation and automation and continually enhance customer experience.
11%
of contact as webchat
Automated
direct debits and refunds
Efficiencies
staff processing time saved
Now, you can create employee and customer experiences that connect data, systems, teams and communication channels. Bring customer-facing teams together in a single workspace, streamline routing, and remove silos within the agent experience.
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