Farewell Contact Centres,
Hello Online?
Chris Hopson
30 June 2010
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HMRC
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Customer base – nearly all individuals / businesses
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100m calls a year call centre operation: one of largest in UK
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43m unique web visitors during 09/10
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87m electronic transactions during 09/10
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One of Government leaders in e-channel e.g. Self Assessment
online, VAT online, PAYE online
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From taxes to tax credits and customs duties to NMW enforcement
What have we learnt?
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1. There’s a lot of avoidable phone
contact to eliminate
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Initial desk benchmarking exercise
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HMRC call classification
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HMRC examples
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Misdirected calls account for up to 10% of calls on some lines
Customer reaction to outputs (letters, forms, returns)
Progress chasing calls accounted for 17% of all calls in 08/09
It works! Early HMRC demand management impact
HMRC call classification
Value Irritant Model – Levels of different types of contact all lines
Low value for the customer – High
value for the business (LH)
High value for the customer – High
value for the business (HH)
3%
29%
Low value for the customer – Low
value for the business (LL)
High value for the customer – Low
value for the business (HL)
40%
28%
Increasing value to the Customer
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Increasing
value to the
Business
2. There’s a lot of phone contact that can
easily be migrated to customer self serve
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Basic information seeking contact
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Simple “rules based” enquiries
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Simple transactions
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HMRC examples
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3. And customer self serve doesn’t have
to mean online
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Telephony self-serve
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Basic IVR messages
Transactional IVR
Artificial intelligence
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HMRC IVR functionality
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HMRC examples
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Tax Credits renewals customer information
Changed benefit payment dates
Tax Credits renewals channel and time shifting
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10-15% of all calls now handled by IVR
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Advantages of phone self serve vs online
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4. However, looking at contact, start with
the customer...
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Customer segmentation
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Always needs help (ANH) segment drivers
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Literacy; low ability to manage finances; low IT access or skills; elderly;
disabilities; time of distress; low English language ability
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ANH most likely to need human interaction
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Hypothesis on majority of ANH customers:
– Cost to serve increases
– Customer transaction cost increases
– Error rate increases
– Tax yield / entitlement take up impaired
Without human interaction
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Customer Segmentation
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Willing and able
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Needs help around life events
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Always needs help
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Rule breakers and potential rule breakers
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Complex and high net worth customers
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Criminals
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5. ... and there are some transactions
where human interaction in unavoidable...
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Example transaction types:
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Complexity of product/process
“Rules” need flexing to match particular individual circumstance
Judgement needed
Competing claims
Where customer wants double checking reassurance
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HMRC examples
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Phone or F2F channel needed
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6. ... and there are some big barriers to
migrating phone contact online
In addition to building new online channels and getting take up:
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Effective signposting
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Customer behaviour change needed
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Appetite / acceptability of more radical options to force migration
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Workforce reshaping consequences
......so a quick, complete, rush to self
serve and online doesn’t feel like the
universal answer at the moment
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7. Migrating contact online presents
many fantastic opportunities...
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Basic information to web
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Simple transactions to e-channel
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Accessing / amending “your” record
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Progress chasing / tracking
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HMRC and other Tax Authority examples
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8. ... but there are some under appreciated
issues in addition to digital exclusion
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Back end system integration cost
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Customer volumes, product complexity, age of estate
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Access to investment funding
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Short term cost of rise in phone contact levels
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“Build IT and they will come” doesn’t work
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Customer strategy, marketing, mandation, incentivisation etc.
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Interdependencies
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Risk of fraud
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Capability and expertise
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9. Moving to lower cost, lower functionality
online services is the new paradigm
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High volume, high investment cost, high functionality services
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Investment funding restrictions
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Transactions with lower volumes:
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Build basic capability and allow business to adapt and adopt
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Lower investment cost
Lower functionality
E Forms
Rules based technology
Viewer technology
HMRC examples
•LH
Types of Form
•‘Wizard’
•Fill & submit
•‘Intelligent’
•Fill & print
•Print & Fill
•‘Dumb’
•Current Situation
•Enhanced Usability
•Web Style interface
•‘Interactive’
•Dynamic Presentation
•Reduces errors and omissions
•Can lock ‘not applicable’ fields
•Can calculate fields
•Can check data validity
•Based on Paper Version
•Business and Customer Demand
•Can be developed in-house
•Legible Customer Entry
•Can be made Saveable
•Can be made Accessible
Version 1 | 17/05/2010 | 14
In conclusion
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Huge scope to reduce volume of adviser handled phone contact:
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Cut avoidable contact
Migrate to telephony self serve and online
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But some customers and some transactions continue to require
human interaction
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And there are some big challenges to migrating contact online and to
self serve
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Investment, capability, back end system integration
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Do telephony self serve and low cost, low functionality e products like
e-forms / viewers offer a low cost, easy to achieve, route?
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In transition
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Smaller contact centres, but not farewell yet
More online services but not sole delivery channel