DWP%20Change%20Programme

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DWP Change Programme

• National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers
  Rotherham
• Stephen Holt DWP Director of Change Management
• 5 December 2008

Final
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The vision of the Department

• to contribute towards fair, safe and fulfilling
  lives, free from poverty for children, people in
  work and retirement, disabled people and carers
• to reduce welfare dependency and increase
  economic competitiveness by helping people to
  work wherever they can and employers to secure
  the skills and employees they need and
• to provide greater choice, personalisation and a
  higher quality of service for customers where it
  is in their interests and those of the taxpayers.

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Operating at scale

• DWP is the biggest delivery department in the UK,
  serving over 20 million customers
• Every working day we
• help over 6,000 customers move into new jobs,
  conduct 45,000 advisor interviews and receive
  800,00 job searches
• process over 15,000 new benefit claims
• assess over 3,000 applications for state
  pension
• undertake over 3,000 home visits and
• collect or arrange child support for over 30,000
  children.

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The DWP Change Programme

• A response to three insights
• 40 of contact with DWP comes from people who are
  customers of more than one of our agencies
• overall customer service for those people often
  poor and fragmented
• almost half of contact was intrinsically of no
  value to customer or DWP.

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Customer service?

• The 2008 Customer Contact Survey shows out of
  152m customer contacts
• Payment queries accounted for 14.7m contacts
  e.g. 7.8m of these I havent received
  my money
• Customers progress chasing - 5.3m contacts e.g.
  2.6m customers asking what is happening with
  my appeal
• 6.5m customers have contacted the wrong
  number/office agency
• one of your customers has died generates
  average of 4.8 contacts per death
• State Pension an average of 3.7 contacts for
  every claim processed.

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Our business strategy is based on two core
principles
We want to transform the quality of customer
service
while driving up the efficiency of our delivery
each of which reinforces and enables the other
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Our new service delivery strategy
Structures products/services around customer
needs - accessible, efficient and based on
customer insight

• Right door first
• so customers know which is the most appropriate
  point of contact
• for their needs, but with
• No wrong door
• so customers are always helped at the point of
  contact or passed
• to someone who can help, regardless of their
  access point
• Right first time
• so customers get the correct help/advice for
  their overall circumstances
• in the course of that contact and dont have to
  repeat information or
• chase progress
• Once and done
• so, as far as possible, resolution is achieved in
  the course of the contact, minimising the need
  for follow-up action

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Delivery via five implementation projects

• Transforming Customer Contact - managing and
  developing contact capability across the
  Department - latest technology e.g. voice
  activated telephone systems SMS moving to a
  single DWP wide contact centre by summer 2009
  handling 18 million calls p.a. largest
  single contact centre in Europe.
• Customer Transitions - removing obstacles and
  duplication for customers moving between
  services or businesses.
• Information Management making better use of
  information reusing and sharing information
  we already hold, whilst keeping
• customer data safe.
• Self service improving channels for those
  customers
• who wish to use them.
• Lean - delivering efficiency and customer
  service through relentless attention to
  continuous improvement (developed by Toyota).

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Customer insight
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest
source of learning. Bill Gates

• Customer insight thinking like a customer,
  understanding their experience and putting
  yourself in their shoes.
• helping us gain a better understanding of our
  customers needs-informing the design of
  future products/services
• e.g. self-service - integrating DWP customer
  and private sector data, segmenting customers
  based on potential to use self service channels.
• development of a Customer Charter describes
  standards of service customers can expect when
  dealing with any part of DWP.
• after asking 3,000 customers we have identified
  four key factors that make a real difference to
  their lives

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Focussing on what is important to our customers

• Treat customers well delivering great service,
  listening carefully, offering good advice,
  treating them with respect.
• Deliver the right result giving support to
  customers so those who work can find jobs and
  those who cant get the right financial help.
• Respond on time by meeting customer needs
  faster and keeping them in touch with
  progress.
• Improve access to services making information
  clearer, systems simpler and contacting us
  easier.

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Treat customers well

• Same messaging for customers contacting call
  centres or Benefit delivery Centres
• - consistent customer greeting and
• - consistent in-queue and termination
  messages (from early 2009)

• new telephony
• will enable customer calls to be routed to the
  next available customer service agent, with
  the appropriate skills, wherever located without
  the customer having to re-dial (from March
  2009).

• Single Customer View will enable
• staff to view customer information on one
  screen
• a wider range of customer queries to be answered
  at the first point of contact with
• rollout from October 2009 for some benefits.

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Deliver the right result
Reducing the level of official error through a
combination of - more efficient processes
(often with less steps) improved accuracy
so more customers get the right decision first
time - online facility, via Directgov, for
customers to track their claims and check
entitlement (from 2009) - improved
management of data reducing the number of
times data is captured twice and improvements to
how changes of circumstances are captured.
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What happens when a customer reports a
change..today
Difficult Customer Experiences whenever they
report a change
3 contacts
Example over 10 million wasted contacts per year
for 3 changes (address, method of payment and
bereavement)
1 contact
4 contacts
5 contacts
1st line contact dont gather all information,
particularly when the customer gets more than one
benefit
2 contacts
Forms and Calls are made to customer to request
further information. Often several times per
change
6 contacts
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What happens when a customer reports a
change..in 2009
Once and Done Customer Service
Stage 1 - Information Capture Tool by end April
09 (Wrexham Pilot most changes processed on
date of receipt)
Stage 2 - Single Customer View for Enquiries
October 09for Changes 2010
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Respond on time

• using Lean we have already demonstrated the
  ability to reduce the length of time it takes
  for a claim to reach conclusion, through
  removing waste from processes.
• looking at new ways of gathering, checking and
  re-using information to make the claims
  process faster and easier e.g. for change
  of address, method of payment, reporting a
  death.
• have reduced avoidable contacts by 72 million
  calls equivalent over last 3 years by 2011
  we aim to reduce current level by 50 - we can
  spend more time providing a valuable telephone
  service to those who really need it.

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Improve access to services

• online service channel for customers via
  Directgov.
• increased access 24/7 as services expand e.g.
• - from the end of 2009 700,000 customers every
  year will be able to claim their State Pension
  online if they wish to do so
• - working with CABs in Blackpool Hertsmere to
  evaluate an enhanced online better off
  calculator and comparison tool
• looking a feasibility of bringing forward online
  JSA claims.

• Benefits Adviser Service
• - launched October 2008 - advice on 28 benefits
  and credits (previously 11), how to make a
  benefit claim, links to online Jobsearch and
  State Pension forecast
• good customer feedback - 75 rated Good
  Excellent.

• customers moving between working age pension
  age benefits - by re-using information we
  already hold many customers, will simply
  confirm that the information is correct to
  claim their pension benefits
• - roll out by end May 2009.

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What our customers will say in 2011
Treatment Customer service is actually getting better. You are treated as an individual and they understand your needs. Right Result You only need to report certain changes once and they tell other departments for you We now have a wider choice of fast and secure methods for communicating with DWP
Ease of access I have a personal online account with DWP It is really reassuring that I have a wider choice of intermediaries who can start off DWP business on their behalf. Timely response You can submit claims online and track its progress. Service is much more efficient as they have streamlined their internal processes which means less people contact them unnecessarily.
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Barriers to providing an integrated customer
experience

• generating investment funding
• levels of waste and repeated contact
• history (e.g. 28 legacy systems and 7 telephony
  platforms)
• the politics of mandating channel choice
• organisational accountabilities fragmented
• risk appetite
• legislative barriers
• cross agency customers

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Questions?