LTSA applies HEAT to save lives
Managing a road network valued at about $23 billion, a national vehicle fleet estimated to be worth up to $20 billion, and a rail network valued at about $800 million is the task of New Zealand’s Land Transport Safety Authority...
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Established in 1993 by the Land Transport Act and charged with promoting land transport safety, the LTSA employs around 670 staff and outsources over 85% of its business. As a consequence, potentially more than 11,000 people work on the LTSA’s behalf on any given day. Today, the LTSA’s 130 customer service representatives at the organisation’s Transport Registry Centre in Palmerston North typically field around 27,000 calls a week from consumers querying everything from driver licenses and vehicle registration to truck drivers who pay road user charges for diesel tonnage payloads. In addition, the LTSA’s IT support and service desk teams field around 800 calls a month from a network of 11 LTSA sites around the country. Tracking all these calls, whether they’re received over the phone or via email, IVR and fax, has been handled by FrontRange HEAT software – now entering its second decade of support for the LTSA’s IT department. HEAT, which is built on a standard Microsoft SQL database server, delivers a full-featured customer service and support solution with a single view of the customer, enabling the LTSA to control service and support issues and resolve them effectively. Up until 1999, the LTSA ran HEAT version 2 on a Watcom 16bit database at which time the organisation held about a million call records. However, due to the ageing of the database and its limited capabilities and performance, the LTSA then transitioned to a MS-SQL server and redesigned its HEAT client screens with the assistance of Olympic Software NZ, FrontRange Solutions’ partner. The most noticeable improvement was that search times simply vanished away – resulting in a faster service for New Zealand’s driving public. After call time reduced Once a call enters the network, the caller’s details appear on the agent’s screen. Automating this process has accelerated the number of calls an agent can handle per hour and greatly reduces potential human error. Indeed, calls to the service desk are either logged directly into HEAT or via emails which uses AutoTick Generator to create the call log. In addition, HEAT screens are colour coded which allows for ready identification of the screen by call type. Back in 1999, the LTSA outsourced its contact centre operations in order to handle the complete transition to photo ID licences and minimise risk from Y2K compliance. HEAT was used at the time as a platform to monitor the organisation’s program to relicense more than 2.5 million drivers – a feat achieved within a 12-month period. Today, the LTSA holds around 5.2 million call records and in recent years has implemented 150 licenses of HEAT version 6.4 at the same time as it has insourced all aspects of its customer tracking business. With HEAT meeting all of LTSA’s criteria for being scalable, easily deployable, and webenabled, the LTSA is about to embark on a new journey with the new version. FrontRange HEAT version 8.1 promises to minimise hold times and maximise workforce efficiency even further by merging voice and data via an advanced skills-based routing system. “Our business objective in upgrading to HEAT version 8.1 is to provide faster access to information, a quicker turnaround of service to customers, and streamline much time-consuming administration in the process,” says Maurice Job, IT services delivery manager. HEAT version 8.1 includes an ITIL module, onscreen functionality, and job scheduling. Screen options will now become more efficient with drop down menus, while better reporting features will show historical information and trends at the customer service agent’s moment of need. Process automation For example, customer service representatives could be notified when a customer’s license is up for renewal. The call centre and HelpDesk will also be able to track work against Service Level Agreements, as the module itself operates as an automatic reminder, enabling the LTSA to more efficiently meet the needs of its customers. “With the latest version of HEAT offering incident management and service level features,” says Job, “there’s nothing that HEAT can’t do in helping to ensure we meet customer service metrics. You can make it what you want. We face the future with a comprehensive knowledge-based software platform that enables us to demonstrate excellence in total business management and overall customer service delivery.” For more information |
December 2004
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