Contact Wrexham set to relocate and council considers new webchat facility as part of service modernisation

Wrexham’s public help and customer support system is to relocate to the town’s library this summer as the local authority looks to further modernise its services.

The move of Contact Wrexham, which is currently based on Lord Street, has been proposed as part of the local authority’s ICT & Digital Strategy 2020-23.

The plan, which was implemented during autumn 2020, included a review of the council’s customer services provision and how it could be modernised.

A report due before members of the the council’s customers, performance, resources and governance scrutiny committee on Thursday (17 March) highlights how the pandemic has resulted in “significant changes being made in the way the council delivers its services and acceleration of the council’s Modern Ways of Working’ programme.

As a result the council is set to continue its move away from how many of its services were traditionally provided.

Thursday’s report comments on how there has been “significant changes in customer behaviour” over the last two years, which has “provided the opportunity to review the current Customer Service delivery model.”

The document continues onto state: “By moving from a traditional service focused contact centre to a customer support model that enables customers to access digital communication channels and respond to enquiries across a range of contacts including phone, email and web chat we will ensure we can meet the needs of customers now and in future years.

“The ICT & Digital Strategy 2020-2023 and the Modern Ways of Working Programme outline the direction of how the council will work in the future.

“It is therefore appropriate to review how the customer front end of the organisation is designed to deliver these objectives.

“With this in mind, a new Customer Access Standard document has been developed to replace the old strategy and complement the ICT & Digital Strategy 2020-23.

“The main ethos of the revised standards is that all services will work together to deliver quality online services 24/7, enabling customers to self-serve with confidence, and therefore enabling us to focus our resources and support on those who need it most.

“The Customer Access Standard is an internal document that provides general principles to all services that apply to all correspondence followed by specific guidance for telephone enquiries, email and other written correspondence.

“This has now been shared corporately and regular quality checks to ensure services have adopted the guidance will be carried out.

“Support will also be provided to enable services to change the way they work and use technology so that they can meet the standard required.”

As part of the ongoing review into how the council provides customer service support, the town’s Contact Wrexham Centre is to relocate to the library.

The move from Lord Street, which forms “phase four of the corporate office accommodation review” is expected to take place early this summer. As we previously reported, the building itself was sold in 2019 for £1.6m at public auction after being listed with a guide price of £1.7m – the sales particulars at the time noted that Wrexham Council were renting the building until 2022. Wrexham.com understands there was no participation in that auction by Wrexham Council.

It is acknowledged that not everyone can access services digitally – nor want to – with Wrexham Council stating that the new location will “allow a focal point for customers to continue receiving face to face support and also encourage visits to the library itself.”

Looking ahead the report notes that further support is planned to “develop customer service provision across the other libraries” in Wrexham by offering an outreach service on specific days.

The report notes: “One of the key services managed by Contact Wrexham is the Blue Badge application process.

“By going into the community this will further assist those customers who experience mobility issues and wish to apply for a badge among a range of other services that will be provided.

“Ideas for this provision are still in the early stages and feedback is welcomed from Members to help shape this service.”

During the summer the council’s telephone contact centre, digital and complaints team will also relocate to the Lambpit Street offices in the town centre

Further details into how the pandemic has spurred along the move to less traditional methods is also provided in the report, which explains that the “cloud contact centre provides improved functionality to design and record queue messaging that promotes the shift to digital.”

It also highlights plans to introduce a new webchat facility as part of its customer service support system.

The report states: “The telephony element of the cloud contact centre was implemented last year, this enables agents to work in an agile way from home or the office.

“This has proved valuable through recent periods of the pandemic and with winter weather conditions as it meant that a full team was available even if access to the office was not possible.

“The platform also allows for much improved reporting that has enabled a review of performance measures.

“The next stage of the project is to integrate ContactUs emails to the MyAccount digital platform and then explore appropriate technology to enable a webchat function.

“The cloud contact centre provides improved functionality to design and record queue messaging that promotes the shift to digital.

“This messaging can be amended much faster than previously so can be tailored for specific peaks in calls or weather related events.

“Customer behaviour can be tracked and data analysed to evidence the percentage of customers who hear a message and then hang up to go online therefore allowing us to measure the success of specific campaigns.

“A range of new measures are now being reported across published telephone numbers. The intention is to provide a fuller picture of the customer journey other than how many calls were answered. The new measures include average wait times, percentage of long waits (over 15 minutes), positive abandonment rates (customer ending call to go online following messages promoting digital access).

“Other digital measures are now also recorded including the percentage of digital versus mediated contact.

“Work is ongoing to include further measures such as the percentage of failure demand contact and the engagement rates from messages sent from the digital communications platform.”

The report will be considered by members of the council’s customers, performance, resources and governance scrutiny committee on Thursday 17 March.