Dr Catriona Wallace

Government Technology Review: How big is the government call centre sector? How many people does it employ?

Dr Wallace: According to our most recent study, the 2010 Australia and New Zealand Industry Benchmarking Reports, government contact centres make up 22 per cent of total seats [a ‘seat’ in a contact centre can be occupied by more than one worker, and is used as a metric that indicates a centre’s capacity] based on our sample. We found that the industry as a whole has 198,200 seats, which means there are around 43,600 seats in Australian government contact centres. The mean seat size is 134 and 30 is the median. The mean number of full-time equivalent staff is 95 with a median of 20.

GTR: How many government contact centres are operated in-house?

Wallace: Ninety-three per cent of government contact centres are in-house and 7 per cent use a mixture of in-house and outsourced operations.

GTR: Are there any differences between government call centres and those in the private sector? Do they operate differently? Have different goals? Different metrics?

Wallace: There are several marked differences between government and private contact centres. For example:

• Twenty per cent of government contact centres operate seven days per week. In the wider industry, 38 per cent operate every day;
• Government contact centres operate fewer hours than their private sector counterparts. Our data suggests government centres operate 11 hours per weekday. Outside the public sector, 13-hour days are the norm;
• Government contact centres have information and service provision as their goals. In the private sector, the focus is on sales and revenue generation; and
• Private contact centres value metrics like inbound and outbound conversion rates, occupancy, hold time, the percentage of right party connects and agent utilisation rates. Government contact centres place higher value on metrics like first contact resolution, average time in queue and average wrap time.

GTR: How do government centres compare to private sector facilities? Do they have good equipment and are they on the cutting edge of techniques like multi-channel customer service?

Wallace: Government contact centres generally tend to be less advanced technologically than the private sector and wider industry, but most have solid foundations. Our research shows 73 per cent use automatic call distributors, 67 per cent have employed customer relationship management, and knowledge management has found a home in 53 per cent of government contact centres. Half use interactive voice response systems.

We do, however, see lower levels of implementation of multi-channel integration, with 37 per cent saying they are fully or partially implemented compared to 45 per cent among
private centres.

GTR: Are government call centres innovative?

Wallace: Government seems to be slower to move and innovate in the contact centre. Having said that, we see some outstanding examples of innovation. A University in New Zealand has implemented a video call centre. In Australia, the Australian Taxation Office and Smart Service Queensland stand out as innovative, but we see less innovation in Victoria and New South Wales.

GTR: What do you perceive as the challenges governments face in their use of teleservices. Are they different to those in the private sector?

Wallace: Our research suggests the top three challenges for government contact centres are:

• Training and agent development (37 per cent)
• Change management (33 per cent)
• Workforce management (30 per cent) In the private sector, the top  challenges are:
  • Staff turnover (32 per cent),
  • Training and agent development (31 per cent)
  • Difficulty in recruiting staff (30 per cent)

GTR: Advocates of placing call centres in regional areas say it makes it easier to recruit and retrain staff, which translates into better service while also stimulating the local economy. Are these valid assumptions?

Wallace: Moving to regional areas will usually create a 10 per cent cost saving, realised primarily through better agent retention.

And yes, staff attrition tends to be about 20 to 25 per cent in regional areas compared to 40 per cent overall. Customer service can be better in the regions, but perhaps the skills available are not suited to technical support or sales roles.