With the introduction of the new National Indicators, including National Indicator 14 – “reducing avoidable contact”, I thought it appropriate to pick up on this topic once more, both in terms of collation of metrics and in relation to tackling this problem holistically.

Initially local authorities will be looking to bench-mark where they are at on this front, primarily using CRM platforms or alternatively using sampling techniques. Whilst this is the start point for many organisations – this assumes that all contacts will initially go through CRM-enabled access points.

The other suggested technique of sampling is an interesting one, and one which has been reflected within the Singularity core product to support the provision of task-based sampling frequencies. Rather than tasks being performed all of the time – tasks can be initiated on a fine-grained configurable sampling basis, according to the required ratio of performance. E.g. sample 4% of all inbound contacts to assess if these were avoidable contacts or not. Suitable checklists can also be defined and provided to work in conjunction with the sampling capability – such checklists can be oriented towards NI14, user satisfaction checking etc. This represents a very powerful capability in order to measure how the organisation is doing on such fronts.

In the future I’ll come back to sampling, with its sister-capability “checking”, and how this provides support for resources with different skill levels in performing work.

Once you’re armed with these NI 14 statistics – how can you set about tackling the issue – assuming that the results indicate there is work to be done.

The critical aspect to reducing avoidable contact is process

• By performing the right tasks, at the right time, ensures efficient service delivery.
• If services are efficient – then the likelihood of someone needing to enquire about services is reduced. Undoubtedly this also drives up satisfaction levels as a result of efficient service.
• Another aspect of process – is timeline. A critical aspect of good workflow technology is their support for time and scheduling of activities.
  In this respect, Singularity’s support for “milestones” is a critical enabler for defining the schedule of when tasks should be achieved.
  Achieving the milestones on time, is a good indicator of meeting organisational (and client) expectations. Not meeting these milestones is a strong indicator of unsatisfied expectations, and indeed likely to lead to what would otherwise be “avoidable contact” as citizens chase progress repeatedly perhaps frustrated by what they believe to be inaction.
• At times, due to the complex processes that are delivered in the public sector, delays can arise – perhaps waiting for information from applicants and third parties. However such delays can be turned from a negative into a positive. With automatic escalation monitoring – if no activity has happened on a process or case within a defined period of time – the system can periodically request staff to check progress and perhaps generate outbound contacts to the applicant, in order to keep them informed as to progress on their behalf.Using the right workflow technology to proactively manage client services can turn service delivery into a more satisfying experience for service providers and service consumers. As a result, avoidable contact is reduced, if not eliminated, as a symptom of inefficiency and/or ineffectiveness within service delivery.

About the author: Paul O’Neill is Delivery Manager for Singularity’s Government unit.

Tags: BPM, CRM, National_Indicator_14, NI14, Processes, public_sector, sampling, Workflow

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.