Loopy Lou Citizen Centric CRM & Refuse Collection

Local Government has been pretty sharp on the uptake of customer relationship management. The single one stop shop is common place. This particular story illuminates one particular local authority's approach to encouraging is council tax payers to use the contact centre. One of the biggest sources of call volume is what is know in the trade as street scene. A main cause of call volume are the antics and working practises of the waste management department:

• 'My bin was not emptied'.
• 'They've left the bin in the middle of the road and I cant put it back'.
• 'They wont empty my bin because the lid was not closed properly'.

Instead of getting the bin men to change the way they work and be a bit more flexible the answer is more investment in call centres to explain why bin men wont do what they used to do. So what was the initial experience of users when they called the call centre?

The council had not communicated to its tax payers the number to call if they had queries about bin collections etc. As a result callers did what they have always done either phoned the old number or contacted the waste management department direct. The person answering the phone could answer their question but a policy decision was made to instruct the caller to use the contact centre. Just to be sure the council changed the employee's contract to discourage them from answering a question they could answer from a tax payer.

Step 1 Upon calling the contact centre the caller had to explain for a second time their requirements or concerns.

Step 2 The call centre assistant raised a case that was to be work-flowed to the waste management department. Unfortunately, the spanking new CRM system did not talk the waste management computer system. So the waste management department employed someone to manually allocate the calls and keep the CRM system up to date. The result was that some cases got lost.

Step 3 Callers with cases that got lost phoned back to chase. Some had forgotten the 10 digit modulus 11 quadratic reference number they were given. So the call centre assistant promised to look into it then phone back.

Step 4 In frustration callers contacted the waste management department direct. Goto Step 1.

Our bin men do a vital and important job, which has more social purpose than working in a call centre divorced from reality. Bin men should be paid more instead of using the money to staff call centres who just apologise for poor service and record information. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSbz5SgES-4&feature=fvw