Specific considerations for Government and Public Sector Call Centre Audio

Andy Ralphs is a call centre consultant, specialising in government and public sector call centres. Andy has set up the call centre operations for London Borough of Waltham Forest, Cheshire County Council, and most recently Wokingham Borough Council.

“Government call centres are different from private sector call centres, and the approach to in‐queue experience has to be adjusted accordingly”, says Andy Ralphs.

“Some might say having professional voice recordings is a ‘nice to have’. My opinion is that no Government call centre can afford not to have professional audio. Premier has demonstrated how professional audio can really change caller perception. I would not consider running a call centre without involving them”. Andy Ralphs, Wokingham Borough Council

Over several projects, Andy has identified a number of key considerations:

The caller age profile, ethnic diversity and gender of callers to government call centres is much broader than in the private sector. For example, people calling a retailer of clothing for 20‐50 year old women of a given price range will tend to be, you got it, 20‐50 year old women of a given socio‐economic group.

Most public sector call centres handle calls from all but the very young, presenting some challenges setting the persona of the call centre. The voice artist needs to be young enough to give a dynamic impression, yet not so young that they alienate the older community.

The call centre is for a public service. This means in‐queue and on‐hold messaging needs to be seen as ‘informative’ rather than ‘promotional’. That said, much of the benefit of good call centre audio is lost when it is not used to ‘encourage’ callers to do specific things (e.g. call back at less busy times, set up direct debit mandates for council tax payments, enquire about the benefits of fostering etc). There is considerable skill in writing the scripts that achieve this balance.

Call Centre Audio is a medium that communications departments can use to great effect, but often it is seen as the domain of the call centre management or IT & Telecoms teams. To get the most from the medium these teams should be actively encouraged to collaborate.