Customer service successes
Sara Errington, Customer Operations Manager, celebrates the work of the Portal Support Centre.
This quarter, Official Injury Claim (OIC) passed the landmark of over 1 million claims entering the service since launching in 2021. However, it is important to remember that behind this milestone, there is a team of over 30 people who have been working hard to ensure the smooth-running of the service as well as (and most importantly) supporting users who interact with the portal.
How we support our customers is paramount at OIC and the team strives, every day, to ensure that all users have the best experience when interacting with the service. And while some areas of our customer service data have been reported within the quarterly publication that we share with the market, the news of over 1 million claims now in the portal seemed a good time to celebrate the work that is tirelessly undertaken, behind the data.
Portal Support Centre
The OIC’s Portal Support Centre has been open since the first day of launch and sees over 20 customer advisors supporting an average of 427 calls per week across all of our user groups, as well as responding to an average of 193 email queries per week too.
For unrepresented claimants that struggle to access the portal online (e.g. customers who may not have access to the internet at home, or for those with vulnerabilities) and require help offline with their claim, this is referred to as a ‘Manual Claim’ and is processed by the use of physical paperwork posted to the claimant, rather than digitally. Since 2021, the Portal Support Centre has ensured that 634 manual claimants have been able to submit a claim that might not have been able to otherwise and with no legal costs to pay.
First Contact Resolution
We have an initiative called ‘First Contact Resolution’ that is in place to measure the likelihood of a customer calling back within 14 days of their initial call to the contact centre. Advisors are trained to ensure that any issues are resolved for the customer during their initial call, as well as pre-empt any future queries by signposting accordingly and/or following-up with relevant support guidance via email as their claim progresses. Currently an average of 73% of customers do not call back to follow up their initial inquiry, a really positive result for the team which really showcases the skill of our agents.
Help Hub
Aside from the OIC’s Guide to Making a Claim support document which seeks to provide unrepresented users with the information they may require to progress a claim through the portal, in February 2023 the Help Hub resource area was launched on the OIC website. This area has seen over 78,000 page visits to date, where users can access a wealth of support documentation, tips, walkthrough videos and FAQs to further support their full claim journey.
Customer surveys
Since September 2022, every unrepresented claimant that calls the Portal Support Centre is made aware they will receive a text message or email following their conversation with an advisor, providing the opportunity to review their experience of using the contact centre. The survey contains four yes/no questions and a free form text box for written feedback. Currently, we are achieving an impressive 97.5% positive feedback score (all-time average) for this survey, with some wonderful direct feedback about our agents too (see below). We also track quality research of the unrepresented claimants who have either completed their claim journey or exited the portal for any reason, by sending them a short survey via email. These user surveys have directly helped us to improve how people interact with the Official Injury Claim portal and have helped to shape the Help Hub area of the website too.
What our customers have to say…
We capture customer feedback from our unrepresented claimant customers on a daily basis and share this with our agents internally. I am extremely proud of the OIC team in how they expertly support the people who contact our service, and this sample of views* underpins this:
- “Absolutely a fantastic person, kind, patient and very clear in their direction on helping me made the whole experience.”
- “The advisor was a great help, friendly, and was very understanding. They were so helpful, especially with my English not being very good. They understood me and explained everything so simply that I understand.”
- “The advisor was extremely helpful, talking me through the whole process, which was very reassuring for me.”
- “The advisor was extremely helpful and talked me through the claim form until it was completed. They then explained what would happen next with the medical appointment and claim. They were very patient, polite and professional.”
- “Pleased with the help received. The staff [could not recall their name, apologies] was very understanding and patient with me even when I sounded distressed and stupid. The call was picked up immediately, too. Thank you for your kind approach to customers like me.”
*The name of the advisors has been removed to protect their privacy.
Supporting all of our users
While the majority of the above insight sheds light on our unrepresented users, it is also important to note that we also support professional users daily by phone and email. We also continue to listen and seek feedback from all OIC stakeholders with the Official Injury Claim Industry Feedback Form (launched when the roundtable sessions ran in 2023). Any comments from the industry feedback form, form part of the ongoing discussions that we have with the MoJ, as part of our commitment to keep improving what we are doing.
As a service, the OIC has received much coverage since launching, much of it unfortunately negative. However, with our fourth anniversary on the horizon and the landmark number of claims entered into the system, now felt like a good time to reflect upon the incredible work being undertaken behind the scenes, on a daily basis by our operational team.