The Challenge: An old, expensive way of working
With more than 100,000 people living or working in Lichfield District, the council’s customer service team needed a modern system that allowed them to be more responsive to locals calling with inquiries or service requests.
In addition, its existing system was very basic. It was limited, slow, and out of date, and the council’s customer service team needed more control over administering the system. For example, setting up out-of-office notifications for the end-of-year festive period or bank holidays could take up to three weeks.
Even though the team had their frustrations with too many call queues, repeat calls from the public, and other issues, it wasn’t until they moved to 8x8 that they discovered how outdated their system was and how it didn’t meet their needs.
A full XCaaS solution, including 8X8 Work, 8x8 Contact Center, 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams, and 8x8 Secure Pay, was the best way forward to meet all the needs of the Lichfield District Council and its constituents. An additional benefit was that the 8x8 XCaaS solution was more cost-effective than the renewal costs of the previous system.
The Solution: More functionality – at a lower price
As Lichfield District Council migrated its in-office and hybrid workers to the new system, there were a lot of set-up, training, and testing sessions. Not only did the Lichfield District team take advantage of 8x8’s online resources, but they also kept in regular communication with 8x8 support representatives who quickly answered any other issues.
This level of support and the ease of use of the platform and tools meant that agents could quickly build confidence in working with 8x8. And, as the implementation went so smoothly, it allowed the teams to focus on ensuring that callers’ needs were met. Once everyone was set up, it was the new feature set that highlighted the 8x8 difference. “Once we could see what we had with 8x8,” said Claire Penny, Customer Services Manager, at the council, “we could see what had been lacking in the previous system.”
For instance, the council is using speech analytics to monitor feedback to the team. The old system required a lot of data manipulation with the reports, but with 8x8, the information is more or less at their fingertips.
Secure payment is also a valuable benefit. Due to the demographics of the groups contacting the council, there is often a reluctance to share financial information in certain ways. Now, agents connected to the caller can talk them through the payment process while remaining completely secure with 8x8 Secure Pay.
Over time, the 8x8 solution has been so straightforward to use that it has also allowed other teams within the council’s organization to be onboarded onto 8x8. While they have less experience with cloud-based platforms than the main customer services team, the 8x8 interface has made it a relatively painless process for them to be brought up to speed.
The Results: More inquiries, shorter answer times
The new level of control quickly brought benefits to Lichfield District Council callers and staff, who felt far more empowered than ever before. Agents could jump into different call queues and help out colleagues and callers if they could see a need.
Amongst the benefits was an increase in chat inquiries. The previous system delivered 30 inquiries a week, but under 8x8, they went to 300 a week, with staff being able to engage and resolve questions quickly.
But the benefits weren’t just seen in the chat channel. Callers have been getting through to speak to the council on their first phone call more often, reducing call volumes. Also, the days of 40-minute wait times—which did happen—are now gone. The average call waiting times went from above 20 minutes to a low of eight minutes. Additionally, the new system has eliminated the challenge of failed callbacks to customers and stakeholders.
Claire sums it up: “8x8 has significantly impacted how we engage with callers and resolve their issues. Chat inquiries are up, while call volumes have dropped, and average call waiting times are down.”
