The DWP’s experience in The DWP’s experience in improving customer serviceimproving customer service13 January 201013 January 2010Leigh Lewis, Permanent Secretary,

London School of EconomicsLondon School of EconomicsNational Audit OfficeNational Audit Office

2 DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

The Department for Work and Pensions

Our Budget around £150bn this year, mostly in pensions and benefits

Our Employees over 100,000

Our Estate 2 million square metres -1,100 buildings

Our contracts commercial spend of £3.5bn per year

Our customers 20 million people at any one time

3 DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

The size of our task

• help 6,000 people find work

• interview 45,000 customers as we helpthem prepare for work

• provide child support for 30,000 children

• process over 3,000 applications to State Pension

• clear over 1,200 claims to Pension Credit

• conduct over 3,000 home visits and

• take over 2 million phonecalls

Today – and every working day – we will:

4 DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

The DWP Change Programme

A response to three insights:

• 40% of the people who deal with us have to deal with more than one part of our Department

• our overall service to those customers is often poor and fragmented

• almost half of the contacts we received were intrinsically of no value to the customer or to the Department

5 DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

Poor customer service also costs money

In just one year we spent:-

• £18 million telling customers that they had dialled the wrong number

• £7 million explaining our letters

• £30 million responding to customers who were simply asking when they would receive their money

6 DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

Customer insight – what have we learnt?Customer insight – what have we learnt?

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”.

Bill Gates

Treating customers well – delivering great service and treating them with respect

Delivering the right result – helping those who can work to find jobs and those who can’t to get the right benefits

Responding on time – meeting customer needs faster and keeping them in touch with progress

Improving access to services – making information clearer, systems simpler and contacting us easier

These principles are now framed in our customer charter

7 DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

So what we have already achieved?

from ‘Full Monty’ to modern Jobcentre Plus offices

• from delivering State Pension by pen and post to once and done over the phone

• from giros and order books to paying 98% of our customer directly into their bank accounts

We have transformed:

8 DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

and we now have a clear service delivery strategy

‘Right door first” helping customers to reach the right person at their first point of contact

‘No wrong door’ passing people who don’t succeed in doing that straight to someone who can help

‘Right first time’giving customers the correct advice or outcome quickly so they don’t have to repeat information or chase progress

‘Once and done’ so far as possible, resolving their needs in one contact, minimising the need for follow-up action

?

9 DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

• Lean (our version of EFQM) – delivering customer service and efficiency through continuous improvement

• Information Management – making better use of the information we already hold

• Transforming Customer Contact – using the latest technology, such as a single DWP wide Contact Centre network, to deliver greatly improved service

• Customer Transitions – helping customers move seamlessly between our services

• Self service – providing more e-channels for customers who wish to use them.

How are we trying to do that?How are we trying to do that?

10

DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

How we are using Lean

making our processes more efficient making better use of customer feedback better engaging our customer-facing staff

Resulting in

•Faster access to adviser interviews in JSA claims

•JSA Rapid Reclaim – making it easier and quicker to re-claim benefit

•Delivering pensions more quickly by reducing internal handovers by 60%

•Savings of over £100m to date

11

DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

Improving information management

We have put in place:

• ‘Trailblazers’ to pilot a DWP wide enquiry service where our agents will be able to answer the most common queries in one call regardless of where they come in

• ‘Tell Us Once initiative’ rolling out across Government

• Improvements to how we gather, check and re-use customer data.

12

DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

Transforming customer contact

We have put in place:

• SMS piloting so that we can remind customers of appointments, interviews etc

• A new TexBox ‘chatroom’ facility for deaf customers

• Improvements to our customer letters –– personalising according to customer need

• A consistent automatic customer greeting to all callers and rationalisation of our phone numbers

• A number of virtual pilots so that we can answer calls more quickly

13

DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

Improving customer transitions

We have developed:

An information capture tool and DWP Enquiry Service so that customers only need to tell us once about a change in their circumstances

Improvements to the notification of bereavement process so that next of kin only need to inform us once of a death 

14

DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

Facilitating self service – getting there• Benefits Adviser – online advice on

entitlement to 28 DWP benefits, pensions and credits

• Contributory Jobseeker’s Allowance Online – launched in August 2009 – has already taken over 80,000 claims

• Jobseeker’s Allowance Online – July 2010 – first fully automated online claims service

• An online calculator – August 2010 – so customers can find out if they will be financially better off in work

• State Pension Online – October 2010 – will

enable up to 700,000 customers each year to use an on-line service

• A Benefit Enquiry Service – November 2010 – so customers can track their claim and check entitlement online

15

DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

What all this means for our customers

• A more personalised approach

• Increased ability to self serve via the channel of their choice

• Quick resolution of common queries

• A clear sense of the standard of service they can expect

• Customers needing to tell us once only about a change in circumstances

We are seeking a reduction in avoidable contact of 50% by 2011

16

DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

Some final conclusions

• this is a long journey, where you never reach the end

• but also a hugely fruitful one• it’s a good job we began it

when we did• because, without it, we

might not have coped with the toughest 12 months in our history

17

DWP is changing…today, tomorrow, together

Working with the LSE and the NAO

• National Audit review 2009 – making significant progress but work to do

• We will continue to use customer insight to frame our approach

• This guidance will provide a ‘sense check’ for us and a standard of good practice to work to