Opening times at the Worcestershire Hub are cut

5:20pm Saturday 23rd March 2013 in News By Sarah Taylor

OPENING times of the Worcestershire Hub are to be cut by 14 hours a week to improve the service.

The move is not to cut costs, according to Worcestershire County Council, but to offer a better and faster service.

The changes will see the hub call lines open from Monday to Friday from 8am until 6pm, a two-hour reduction on the current opening time of 8pm, and Saturday from 9am to 1pm, another cut to the call centre hours, which is currently open until 5pm.

The new opening hours begin on Monday, April 1, but city councillor and former Worcester Mayor Aubrey Tarbuck thinks it’s no joke.

He said: “I am concerned. I would have thought for most people want to make complaints when they get home from work. I feel it is a retrograde step.

“I haven’t been enamoured with the customer service centre myself. When I have had to use them I have had a long wait and it’s been difficult.

“I was never happy with the waiting time to get a response but last time I used it myself I left a message and received a call back within a few hours.”

The contact centre, which is run by Worcestershire County Council, Malvern Hills District Council and Worcester City Council, deals with telephone and email enquiries across the three areas.

The new hours follow a review of customer demand in the contact centre, which highlighted call volumes between 6pm and 8pm during the week and after 1pm on Saturdays were not sufficient to justify the resource required to open the centre.

Rachel Hill, head of customer services for the Worcestershire Hub Shared Service, said: “To clarify, this is not a cost-saving measure but a decision that will enable us to use resource more effectively based on careful monitoring of customer demand.

“From April 1, the resource we currently use to open after 6pm in the week and after 1pm on Saturdays will be re-invested to support our peak times and offer a better, faster service to customers.”

In the past the hub has attracted criticism for long waiting times and unanswered calls.

In February your Worcester News reported the council call centre needed to cut £44,000 from its budget over the next year and in January new data revealed waiting times to the hub had almost tripled with 81,000 calls going unanswered in 2011.

Comments(9)

Landy44 says...
5:50pm Sat 23 Mar 13

“To clarify, this is not a cost-saving measure but a decision that will enable us to use resource more effectively based on careful monitoring of customer demand."

“From April 1, the resource we currently use to open after 6pm in the week and after 1pm on Saturdays will be re-invested to support our peak times and offer a better, faster service to customers.”


So basically, they are reducing the service in the evening because the cant handle the call volumes during the day. Staff used in the evening will have their shifts changed so they work during the day. It possibly saves them some money, but they are basically adjusting their capability to answer the phones at certain times. It's the first call centre I've ever seen allowed to reduce it's hours in order to do this. It implies they don't know how to handle the peak time call volumes.

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Landy44 says...
5:50pm Sat 23 Mar 13

“To clarify, this is not a cost-saving measure but a decision that will enable us to use resource more effectively based on careful monitoring of customer demand."

“From April 1, the resource we currently use to open after 6pm in the week and after 1pm on Saturdays will be re-invested to support our peak times and offer a better, faster service to customers.”


So basically, they are reducing the service in the evening because the cant handle the call volumes during the day. Staff used in the evening will have their shifts changed so they work during the day. It possibly saves them some money, but they are basically adjusting their capability to answer the phones at certain times. It's the first call centre I've ever seen allowed to reduce it's hours in order to do this. It implies they don't know how to handle the peak time call volumes.

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reflector says...
6:01pm Sat 23 Mar 13

OK, so they are reducing their hours. A bit inconvenient for some but not the end of the world.

But why oh why do they put out the spin of it being done to give us a better service? We are not that simple so please don't treat us like idiots.

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Keith B says...
6:13pm Sat 23 Mar 13

Now that's what I call a big lie.

Of course it is a money saving measure - as is everything done in the Council from making staff share desks (last one in sits on the floor) to keeping the heating off in County Hall (pretending it's a green day) to forcing staff to have three days unpaid leave every year - even when work is getting further and further behind.

Don't kid the public - tell the truth - local government is being cut to an absolute minimum because the public don't want to pay any more for it and looking after the elderly is taking ALL the money.

Having no Council Services is a voters choice.

And the first "service" that should go completely is the waste of time Hub!

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grumpy woman says...
8:57pm Sat 23 Mar 13

Agreed. Let's go back to the time where calls were answered by someone who knew what they were talking about.

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ronosborne1955 says...
11:55pm Sat 23 Mar 13

Without a doubt is cost cutting. I have used this service many times in the past and always got first class service whatever time of the day it was.

You need shift times to accommodate all for obvious reasons.

Increase the staffing levels to cover all shifts, this would save public money and contribute to the tax system.

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Jabbadad says...
11:37am Sun 24 Mar 13

I recall attending the presentations when the Hub was being devised, and the thought of ONE TELEPHONE NUMBER to contact any service sounded very practical. What wasn't envisaged was that the people from the various departments who we used to contact when we had queries or seeking advice, would be suddenly placed behind a wall of telephone advisers whose job it was to interrogate the caller and then make a judgement as to whether they were able to answer the inquiry or we could speak with a member of a particular department.
This situation does not only exist at the Hub. Most call centers even Housing Associations are trained not to let you pass, even when you are asking for a particular person to perhaps continue a previous conversation.
Just a couple of weeks ago when trying to contact British Gas I finished up talking to a delightful lady in South Africa, and when trying to contact BT having difficulty in understanding the person in a call center somewhere in India or Pakistan.
No wonder many companies have realised their errors of judgment and are bringing back their call centers to the UK.
As to the HUB the staff there are overloaded, expected to know everything and are also expected to have all calls time monitored in the name of efficiency. But I have given up using the "We will call you back" system since I have NEVER been called back.

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Hwicce says...
12:55pm Sun 24 Mar 13

How can a service be improved by removing it?

Oh, its the hub, no answer is probably better than the wrong answers you usually get.

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Fishy says...
7:35pm Sun 24 Mar 13

If shorter opening hours means better service when the hub is open great!

I work for the council myself and have never had a positive experience with the hub. They gave me wrong information as a customer and put calls through to me inapropriately.

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