As part of a wider customer service and complaint handling project for a Retail Bank, Hazell Carr undertook an in-depth process enhancement review. The client's core requirement was to improve the quality of the responses being issued by the Customer Satisfaction team.

Due to a number of failures in the client's processes, responses were being issued that did not resolve the initial customer query, resulting in further queries and an increasing number of complaints.

There were several areas that Hazell Carr assisted with including:

• Enquiry categorisation: Hazell Carr amended the client's processes so that customer query types could be easily identified and categorised. By categorising customer queries we were able to develop a standardised set of responses.
• First time right: The aim of Hazell Carr's solution was to eliminate repeated enquiries and develop a culture of 'first time right'.
• Skills gap: Hazell Carr rolled out a two-pronged training programme for the client's team. This programme addressed both hard skills such as improved enquiry categorisation and softer skills in the area of call handling and conflict resolution.

Through increasing the number of queries that were resolved first time around, the overall volume of work coming in to the client's team reduced dramatically. Customer satisfaction levels improved considerably.