The common problem I find that hinders government departments when trying to build their call centres is that everyone wants to immediately know HOW. “How will we do this …. How will we do that … How will the technology work …How, How How.” Instead government planners should focus on the 'WWW' - which in our case stands for the three most powerful words in the design or planning of anything: WHO, WHAT and WHY.
Answering all three of these questions in a detailed and planned fashion will solve at least 75 per cent of the how questions as well provide ultimate clarity and a consensus approach to moving forward.
WHO?
Who are we going to provide a service to? What does the profile of our target look like? No use providing super-speed full multi media to clients who are over 60, they simply won’t understand it.
WHAT?
What services are we going to provide? What other channels provide access to these same services? What do the customers say they want? What are we setting as critical success factors? What do we know and what assistance do we need to purchase? What will happen if we don’t build a call centre?You need to be sure you are offering a worthwhile service to the intended audience.
WHY?
‘Why’ is my favourite question. I ask it of CEOs and Department Heads alike. ‘Why?’ is one of the powerful questions in existence. Why do we want to provide these services to these customers (or citizens)? Why do the citizens need it? Why a call centre and not the internet? If you cannot answer why, then you are destined to fail before you start!
The steps
The very first step in planning any call centre is to get all of the interested parties and stakeholders in one room for a day or two. It is essential to invest face-to-face time with all key stakeholders; without a consensus-driven approach your call centre will not get off the ground.
In this one to two day workshop you need to run some ‘Who? What? Why?’ sessions. The only rule is – the ‘How’ word is banned! Let the ‘how’ part fall out of the workshop. Oh, and feel free to add ‘When’ into the ‘Who? What? Why?’ workshop. My advice is to get a seasoned facilitator in to help with this workshop, don’t try and do it internally it doesn’t work!
Next, do some ‘Blue Sky’ planning. In other words, pretend the sky is blue, the sun is shining and that you have unlimited funds – everything is possible. You need to map out a few early processes to be enabled in the new call centre. From these plans and the outputs of the ‘Who? What? Why?’ workshop, come up with a functionality map so that IT can start on its path.
Then comes the major effort of the build, which revolves around Change Management. Most call centres are just ‘thrown together’ and everyone thinks that the technology solution will fix any problems. That is a nice way out for decision-averse management, because if the solution does not work it is easy to blame IT for buying the wrong thing.
Do not under estimate the enormous amount of change needed with the introduction of a call centre. Change Management, by its nature, applies to people. Not technology, not process, not buildings – because none of them care if they get changed. Change Management is about managing the people. Once again seek a seasoned Change Management professional to help you map out what change management tasks will need to be undertaken.
Okay, now you have the ‘Who? What? When?’ and, most importantly, ‘Why?’ worked out. You have clearly articulated your technology requirements. You have your change management map defined in detail and you have appointed an executive sponsor. Only now are you ready to start building something! How long does all this take. Well recently I built a government call centre in Sydney and the politics, planning and documentation took three months! However the actual build only took another three and a half months to completion and go live. So the total timeline was a little over six months for a 75 seat centre. Not too bad really.
Autor: Simon Kriss
Quelle: Public Sector Technology & Management, 15.12.2004
