Cambridgeshire County Council has UK's top public sector call centre

Cambridgeshire County Council is the UK’s best performing public sector call centre in new research from the Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service.

Cambridgeshire County Council achieved 87%, placing it in the Top Ten Call Centres for Customer Services, in the UK’s biggest ever call centre benchmarking exercise, conducted by independent market research company GfK NOP. The study was commissioned by the UK’s Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service, a programme organised by Call Centre Focus magazine, to raise customer service standards in the call centre industry. The research consisted of 20,000 mystery shopper calls to 50 of the UK’s leading call centres, across five sectors – retail, financial services & insurance, telecoms & utilities, public sector and entertainment, leisure & travel. Each call centre was rated using over 50 criteria across five key areas of service - timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalised service – and awarded a Customer Service rating in percentage terms. Cambridgeshire County Council demonstrated that public sector call centres can deliver a world-class customer service, scoring an impressive 87%, nine points above the average score for the public sector. The council joins some of the UK’s leading financial institutions in the Top Ten Call Centres for Customer Service, including First Direct, Specsavers and ING Direct. Public sector organisations who took part in the Top 50 Call Centre initiative include: Cambridgeshire County Council, Driving Standards Agency, DVLA, HMRC, Kent County Council, Liverpool Direct Limited, London Borough of Lambeth, Slough Borough Council and Surrey County Council.

THE UK’S TOP TEN CALL CENTRES FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

1 First Direct 91.73%
2 Denplan 91.32%
3 F&C investments 91.26%
4 Lloyds TSB Insurance 91.02%
5 Laithwaites 90.36%
6 Prudential 89.33%
7 Charles Tyrwhitt 89.29%
8 ING Direct 87.89%
9 Specsavers 87.57%
10 Cambridgeshire County Council 87.13%

Call centres in the public sector performed particularly well for ease of use and reliability, achieving scores of 91% and 86% in these areas. The public sector also demonstrated a strong performance in first-time resolution of calls with 93% of enquiries were resolved on the initial call.

OVERALL TOP 50 CALL CENTRE SCORES BY SECTOR

Overall 83%
1. Retail 87%
2. Financial services & insurance 86%
3. Entertainment, leisure & travel 82%
4. Telecoms & utilities 82%
5. Public sector 78%

Overall, retail and financial services & insurance were the best performing sectors. The public sector achieved a score of 78%, compared to the overall average score of 83% (see Table 1).

Claudia Hathway, Editor of Call Centre Focus, commented:

“This benchmarking survey represents a landmark for the call centre industry, with 50 of the UK’s top call centres prepared to put their reputations on the line in order to raise service standards for their customers. We would like to congratulate Cambridgeshire County Council for their excellent performance, and indeed all of the Top 50, for such high achievements. We hope this initiative will inspire other call centres to improve their levels of customer service to reach the standards set by our Top 50 members and we are grateful to Siemens for their enthusiastic sponsorship and support of the programme and its aims.”

“The results show that many organisations are already delivering a world-class service to their customers. However, there is still room for improvement, particularly in the area of personalised service. By investing in the frontline employees who provide call centre service, organisations have an opportunity to differentiate their performance and increase customer long-term loyalty.”

* - Article from Publictechnology.net