WCED Launches State-of-the-art Call Centre

The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) launched a state-of-the-art Call Centre today (13 April 2004) to improve the quality of support for teachers and officials employed by the department. The Call Centre represents a bold commitment to service delivery.

The new Call Centre also incorporates the WCED's Safe Schools Call Centre, which provides a hotline for learners, educators and parents need for immediate online communication regarding school safety, ie school crime and violence, abuse and property related crime such as burglary, vandalism and theft.

It provides online debriefing or counselling for those who needs it and serves as a co-ordinating centre from which referrals are made to appropriate agencies and from which vital information is disseminated to the relevant parties.

The WCED Call Centre is located on the second floor of the department's head office in Cape Town. It complements a Walk-in Centre, housed on the same floor.

Our Client Services unit received about 94 000 telephone calls in 2003. The overwhelming majority of these calls were from our own staff. The WCED employs about 28 500 teachers and 7 000 public servants. About 70% of these calls were about service benefits, and a further 22% dealt with staff provisioning. About 6% of calls had to do with salaries.

At the same time, callers telephoned up to 160 officials within our personnel departments on a wide range of issues. These dealt with service benefits and staff provisioning, as well as salaries, performance management, policy implementation, misconduct, disputes, appeals and training, among other issues.

Clearly, this requires a much more coordinated approach to handling these calls, to improve efficiency and staff morale, by ensuring that queries are dealt with as quickly and as effectively as possible.

The new Call Centre has 16 seats, with nine allocated to general inquiries, five to the Safe Schools Call Centre, and one for the Call Centre Manager. The centre for general inquiries will begin with six agents, with a view to expanding this number, subject to demand.

The agents will try to assist callers immediately. If they cannot, they will refer the call to back-office teams, who are solely responsible for turning around Call Centre inquiries as quickly as possible.

The WCED has trained about 30 back-office staff to provide this support, and to occupy workstations in the Call Centre at short notice, should this be required. The WCED plans to rotate staff between the Call Centre and the back-office support teams, to ensure that we develop a large pool of expertise in the department for both the Call Centre and the support components.

Given the demand for advice on employment and salary issues, the call routing system directs callers to specialists in these fields, while also allowing for more general inquiries.

While the call centres for both general inquiries and Safe Schools are located in the same facility, they are housed separately, because of the sensitive nature of the calls received by the Safe Schools team.

The Safe Schools Call Centre already reflects best practice for a service of this kind, and its operations will continue as before. Launched in 2000, the Safe Schools Call Centre previously occupied space in the WCED's Teachers' Centre in Claremont. The Safe Schools Call Centre now occupies a purpose-built facility, using state-of-the-art equipment, and will benefit from easier access to management and technical support.

The centre will continue to provide a vital service to both learners and schools. This service is reflected in the kinds of calls received by the centre.

For example, in 2003, the Safe Schools Call Centre received 335 calls from learners who had been abused, 344 calls from schools reporting burglary and vandalism, 226 reports of other forms of crime, 217 reports of gang related violence, 246 calls relating to governing body matters, and 203 requests for information of a general nature.

The agents in the Safe Schools Call Centre form an integral part of the Safe Schools Programme. In addition to taking calls, they also participate in rapid-response activities of the Safe Schools Programme, when this is required.

The new WCED Call Centre is using the latest available hardware and software in a purpose-built facility that reflects best practice in Call Centre operations. The WCED's primary supplier is the Dialogue Group, who manage one of the largest Call Centres in Cape Town, as well as the provincial government's Cape Gateway Call Centre. The latest software used by the WCED Call Centre includes CyberCall Contact Centre and Dictaphone Freedom Voice Logging systems, used to route, log and record calls automatically.

The provincial government's Schools IT unit, who now form part of the province's Centre for e-Innovation, has developed a special Call Centre Management System for logging issues dealt with by the Call Centres and back-up staff. The IT team developed different versions of the software for general inquiries and Safe Schools, given the different requirements of the two components of the Call Centre.

The WCED's Communication Directorate will manage the new facility, supported by our personnel and finance directorates, IT specialists and service providers.

The Call Centre industry is growing rapidly internationally, with major new approaches to improving client service. The WCED's Call Centre reflects these developments, and will continually strive to reflect best practice. This will require constant attention to training and systems development.

The WCED Call Centre will complement our other initiatives designed to improve service delivery. These include our web site, WCED Online, extensive curriculum support, and our Education Management and Development Centres, which bring development support much closer to schools in every district.

We have entered a new era in client service by launching this facility. We are on a steep learning curve, but in the long run, we are confident that the new WCED Call Centre will contribute significantly to improving client service, especially for our teachers, officials and learners in need.

Inquiries:
Rudi Buys
082 57 6551