"Confero responded to a call for immediate additional customer services resource and took pressure off the council who saved up to £2m annually."

Who are Winchester City Council?

Winchester City Council (WCC) is one of 11 district councils in the county of Hampshire. It serves a population of approximately 114,500 people and attracts around four million tourists a year, primarily to see Winchester Cathedral, one of Europe’s largest and most imposing Gothic cathedrals.

Winchester City Council and Confero

WCC were looking at ways of delivering services more efficiently and this often means sharing resources. They decided to combine their waste, recycling and streetcare services with East Hampshire District Council with planned savings of £2m annually.

This strategic development resulted in an exponential increase in the number of customer enquiry calls being placed to the customer service centre as a result of the changes to the residents’ waste collection cycle. Recognising an immediate need for additional resources, the Head of Customer Services at WCC contacted Confero to discuss their crisis management options and how quickly a solution could be implemented.


The Confero Solution

Within three days of receiving the initial phone call, Confero mobilised a team of 10 Dedicated crisis management helpline agents who were trained on WCCs computer systems and started taking live calls on their behalf seven days a week through to 9pm.

Results

In four weeks, Confero answered and responded to 7,500 calls. This took considerable pressure off the council who could then focus on the merged services as well as the additional administration and logistics issues – and enabled a complete and satisfactory resolution of their customer service offering.