The issue

The Haringey Council IVR system was complicated and confusing for customers, who had to navigate through numerous menu and sub menus options for each department.

Call volumes and queue wait times were increasing month on month leading to falling customer service levels

The solution

Haringey Council chose IVR Recordings to provide a complete IVR Consultancy and Recording Service.
Through a number of workshops with stakeholders and back office staff, we designed the new IVR call flows from scratch, along with new scripting. We took advantage of system features such as queue call back and, most importantly, SMS integration to encourage channel shift where relevant.

The result

The new IVR system provided instant results; on the day of primary school place notifications 80% of calls were deflected online to the primary schools portal.

Council Tax bill enquiries have been reduced by 50% , and whilst over the past 12 months call volumes have increased, the number of calls requiring a live agent to answer them has reduced by 22%.

Through effective IVR messaging encouraging customers to self serve via the council website, the contact centre has also experienced a 27% reduction in email traffic.

Overall the new IVR system will provide an operational saving of £200,000 year on year.

Return On Investment:

• Operational savings of £200,000

• 80% of school enquiries deflected online

• 27% reduction in email contact

• 10% increase in service level

• 22% reduction in answered calls

• 50% reduction in council tax enquiries

Video Testimonials

IVR & SMS Text integration

Part of the project with Haringey Council was to encourage use of the Haringey website whenever relevant so people can self serve via the most appropriate method.

The video below explains the benefits, demos how the system works and shares some of the results.

Haringey Council - IVR Project Outcomes

Haringey Council - IVR Workshop