The National Indicator 14 (NI 14), aimed at reducing avoidable contacts between the community and local authorities, is now a required indicator for Councils and ALMOs and will need to be provided for the first time in 2009.

The aim of the indicator is to encourage councils to assess the nature of customer contacts 

• what information is provided to customer
• how it is provided
• when are customers able to access information and services at the first point of contact and when they are forced to make several contacts to get what they need.

Types of avoidable contacts

• A customer seeks unnecessary clarification, e.g. in response to a poorly worded letter from the Council/ALMO.
• Contact caused by poor signposting, e.g. customers passed to the wrong team or rings the wrong number because advertised contact points are unclear.
• Repeat contact with the customer who has to provide the same information several times in order to complete a transaction, e.g. to record a change of address.
• Customer is progress chasing, seeking reassurance or making other unnecessary service delivery follow-up.
• Repeat contact due to premature closure of a previous contact, e.g. customer returns to the walk in centre at a later time when queues are shorter than they were previously.

Why measure it? 

Simply, if you don’t measure it you can’t manage it.

Before you can reduce avoidable contact you need to know the volume and, perhaps more importantly, build a clear picture of what causes it. Is it poor information? Do processes need improving? Is more training needed?

Collecting data 

Concerns have been expressed over the impact on authorities of collecting the data.

The primary way of collecting data for this indicator is expected to be through the use of a contact management or CRM system. But in themselves these systems only provide part of the answer – you need a system that identifies the nature of the contact.

How can Keyfax help?

Keyfax captures the information you need to monitor and tackle avoidable contact effectively.

The flexibility of Keyfax scripting enables avoidable contacts to be identified and logged.  This is easily achieved by automatic identification of outcomes within scripts or by adding simple checks to identify and classify avoidable contacts.  The contact information and outcomes captured are stored in the Keyfax database and available for reporting and analysis purposes.

So, depending on your specific needs, Keyfax can be applied simply to record customer contacts and outcomes, including avoidable contact, through to full contact – flow management linked to your contact management systems and databases.

Reducing avoidable contact is about making life 'better' for your customers. But it is also about making life easier for you. Reducing avoidable contact gives you more capacity to handle the unavoidable contacts more efficiently.