Quality Service Costs Revenue

Profitability Customer Satisfaction

Internal Provider

Centrelink Call

Managing Performance Improvement Across 27 Call Centers

hen you think of customer service, few people would consider a Federal social services call center as exceeding service, quality and cost expectations. The Federal Government of Australia, however, has changed the face of social services customer care for millions of Australians seeking assistance with welfare, student services, disability, and pension issues. In 1998, the Federal Government set up a separate, independent contact center organization providing service through two channels, Centrelink Call and The partnership between Walk-In Centers. Serving more than 40% of the population, Centrelink Call and COPC Centrelink's 27 call centers and continues to evolve as 400 face-to-face site offices we discover unique provide the information they opportunities for Performance need quickly and efficiently. The Improvement. Centrelink will be unique aspect of the Centrelink among the first COPC clients Call organization is not the to design an internal standard number of facilities, rather around the COPC-2000 the fact that these centers are considered among the best Standard. The Centrelink call center organizations in Call Standard of Excellence the country. will rely on the rigorous audit

Centrelink Call provides services to a myriad of government agencies, treating them like clients, and frequently providing services on an emergency basis, such as the bombing in Bali. All call center programs are coordinated through Call Canberra, the central location managing the various networks across 27 virtual centers. The seamless multi-network environment, with more than 4000 Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), delivers essential services to nearly 7 million Australians annually. With the logistics in place, the challenge faced by Christine Hagan, General Manager of Centrelink Call, was obvious, how can we improve service and quality and reduce costs? As an independent organization, we believe our clients expectations are extremely high, therefore we continually implement performance improvement processes to exceed those expectations and reduce costs, since government funding is limited. The most daunting hurdle Christine encounters is the implementation of performance improvement initiatives across 27 call centers simultaneously.

practices inherent in the COPC certification process, providing the structure and discipline required to successfully improve Service, Quality, Cost.
Peter Bloom, President, COPC Inc.

By centralizing the customer service operations, the government established an outsourced atmosphere, motivating Centrelink to perform as a commercial organization. As a professional call center organization,

The process began in August 2002 with the first COPC Benchmark Review of three key contact centers with a CSR headcount of 500. The resulting recommendations triggered a metrics realignment in all 27 centers. As the metrics
Case Study Centrelink 4Q03 Ver. 1

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Centrelink Call continued...

become more critical to the establishment of the Centrelink Call Center Standard of Excellence, Centrelink Call and COPC are in the process of developing the Squeaky (SQC) Metric, a single metric for Service, Quality, and Cost. By integrating several measures for each component, the Squeaky Metric will enable Centrelink to compare performance across all 27 contact centers, as well as all active networks. When the results of the Benchmark Review were presented to the Call Center Leadership Team (CCLT), implementation strategies for COPCs recommendations included HPMT training by COPC for 55 call center managers. Additionally, Centrelink has licensed HPMT training and COPC has certified five call center managers as COPC Certified Trainers. These Trainers have begun implementing HPMT training of 400 supervisors and managers at all 27 centers. Mark Cartlege, one of the managers at Centrelinks Illawarra call center said, I would first like to say how invigorating the HPMT Session in Sydney was last week. COPC is bringing a vibrancy to the Centrelink Call Network that is very exciting. He further commented, Centrelink Call Illawarra has, in my opinion, only just started to utilize the powerful management practices COPC is assisting Centrelink Call to realize. I am sure that applying COPCs recommendations to our approach to issuing PINs (one of Centrelinks performance requirements) has ensured that we consistently sustain a rate 3 times that of where we were previously. In addition to the implementation of HPMT programs, Centrelink Call and COPC recognized the need to enhance the training

opportunities available to call The success of the Benchmark center supervisors. process in 2002 and 2003, COPC and the implementation of HPMT, collaborated has shown us the value with the Incoming Calls Management of COPCs Performance Institute (ICMI) Improvement process. to develop a fully Our continuing initiatives include customized training annual COPC Benchmark Reviews product that of three call centers per year, includes key extensive High Performance elements from Management Techniques (HPMT) COPC's HPMT training, and the CCLT meeting and ICMI's essential skills and where COPC recommendations knowledge training. and strategies are reviewed. Centrelink Call, Christine Hagan, General Manager, COPC and ICMI Centrelink Call created a threeweek, diploma-level course providing the most comprehensive call center supervisor training worldwide. This program further demonstrates Centrelinks total commitment to improving customer service performance. Centrelink Call is renowned as a premiere customer service provider. Ultimately, the integration of COPC practices has led to the development of a common language that facilitates communication in a virtual environment helping 27 contact centers talk to each other, to Call Canberra, to all programs within all networks. And that translates to increasing customer satisfaction among 7 million Australian citizens while reducing operating costs.

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Case Study Centrelink 4Q03 Ver. 1