Ask people what famous event is linked to July 4th and many will say American Independence Day, but for those manning the calls coming into Falkirk Council that date signals one of the standout successes of the Council of the Future programme so far – the installation of the Next Generation Contact Centre (NGCC).

A year ago today the NGCC went live. Since then the £120k state-of-the-art contact centre telephony system has received over one million calls and single-handedly eliminated the engaged tone previously heard by over 60k people each month.   

By reducing the number of Council helplines from 50 to one the system offers callers an easy way to self-serve, with 30% of calls received over the past year directed to the right service without coming via the contact centre.

Of the calls received in the past 12 months, 80% have been answered within 120 seconds while calls to the life-saving Mobile Emergency Care Service (MECS) system are now answered within seven seconds, beating industry standards.

The intelligent, cloud-based system also:

• Provides recorded messages prior to speaking to an adviser, including the option to pay by Direct Debit and real-time updates in the event of bad weather.
• Voice records all calls coming into the Contact Centre to help with training and service delivery.
• Manages all customer emails coming into the Council, freeing up the contact centre team to answer more calls.

Pictured are the contact centre team celebrating the NGCC's first birthday.