Call Centre Audio Case Study - Newham NHS PCT

Client: 

Newham NHS Primary Care Trust

Attributes:

• Improve Customer Service
• Increase Call Centre Efficiency
• Reduce Call Duration
• Cut Abandonment Rates

Services:

Call Centre Audio Marketing Solution

Newham NHS PCT Background

Newham NHS PCT serves the community of London Borough of Newham. It employs around 1,050 staff based across 23 sites and encompassess all 65 GP practices, 69 pharmacists, 55 opticians and 80 dentist sites in the borough.

As part of a larger project to improve end-to-end delivery of district nursing care, Premier were invited to advise on how the first contact - the telephone booking of the nursing appointment, could be improved.

The old adage "Because first impressions count" emphasises the importance of setting the right caller experience from the very first contact and Premier could see clear ways that this could be improved.

Before Premier were involved, the Call Centre scripts were written and recorded by the Call Centre staff.  Whilst calls were in-queue, callers heard a ring-tone with occasional amateur "comfort messages" such as 'you call is important to us.... please hold' (probably the most overused and disliked phrase in telephony today!)

The Project Objectives:

Premier Business Audio worked with thier partner BT, to provide engaging and professionally scripted IVR menu prompts and in-queue marketing productions. Newham were keen to evaluate if such recordings were a 'nice to have' or a 'valuable' addition to the telephony service.  As such, a trial was split into two stages:

• Stage 1: During stage 1, callers heard ring tone with occasional comfort prompts
• Stage 2:  During stage 2 the ring tone was replaced with a mixed voice and music production, that answered FAQ's, comforted and reassured callers.

Premier liaised with Newham staff to understand the call types, caller's experiences and identify frequently asked questions that could be answered in the short period whilst callers were queuing.

The Results

The trial conclusively shows that following the 16,000 calls, the average time to abandon increased by 24% causing the percentage of abandoned calles to fall by 33%.

This illustrates a hugh improvement in customer service as callers were answered who previously would have hung up due to frustration.

Additionally, the callers answered were happier than they would have been if they had been listening to a ring tone.

There was also a 31% decrease in average call duration from stage 1 to stage 2.  Although this may not wholly be attibutable to playing callers the answers to FAQ's in-queue, this was the only external change identifiable.

Comments:

Commenting on the results, Roderick Moodley - Projects & Info Officers for the District Nursing and Community Matron Services said " I am amazed that such a simple to implement part of this project could have such a large impact on the service we provide.  It is remarkably clear that the professional prompts make a hugh difference with regards to retaining callers and reducing call abandonment rates."