Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, one of the UK's largest trusts, was facing a significant challenge in managing patient contacts across their Central Booking Outpatients, Admissions and Switchboard teams. The trust provides acute and specialist healthcare to approximately 1.5 million people every year across five busy sites in north-west London. The Switchboard alone used to handle an average of 11,500 interactions a day. However, call fluctuations and siloed departments made it difficult to meet daily demand, leaving upwards of 800 calls unanswered at times. These missed calls not only represented a lost opportunity to free up availability of limited clinical resources but also resulted in a significant amount of failure demand. The trust needed a contact centre solution that would allow them to manage their patient contacts more effectively, delivering an omnichannel digital service without the need for extra headcount.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, one of the UK’s largest trusts, provides acute and specialist healthcare to around 1.5 million people every year across five busy sites in north-west London. The trust was struggling with handling over 11,500 inbound calls a day, with agents having little time to determine the purpose of the call before routing it. They had a target KPI of answering 70% of all calls within 30 seconds. The challenge was to optimize inbound and emergency calls by tackling incorrect transfers and relieving strain on operators. This was necessary to reduce caller frustration, ward disruptions, and rising call volumes. In the case of emergency calls, where the time to answer is under 10 seconds, the trust needed to rapidly identify these priority calls amid high call volumes to trigger emergency protocols.

Network Certification Body (NCB), a leading provider of railway assurance and certification on infrastructure, vehicle, and freight projects in the UK and worldwide, was facing a challenge with its existing IT systems. With an average of 200 rail projects being delivered at any one time, safety was its first priority. However, the existing systems for managing assessment service delivery were inefficient. NCB needed to replace largely manual information management with automated document generation, while supporting the NCB’s Progressive Assurance Methodology. The new solution would need to administer complex document templates and facilitate efficient and effective client communications between NCB and its clients.

The healthcare sector is often burdened with administrative tasks that can limit the capacity of staff and resources. Traditional methods of patient engagement, such as appointment notifications and waiting list validations, can be time-consuming and inefficient. Additionally, the reliance on physical mail for appointment letters can lead to delays and lost information. The challenge was to find a solution that could reduce the administrative burden on staff, increase capacity, and improve patient engagement, while also integrating seamlessly with existing healthcare systems.

Bracknell Forest Council (BFC) serves a rapidly growing population of over 125,000. The council's digital team is tasked with delivering efficient and accessible services to all citizens, including its out-of-hours handling service, the Berkshire Emergency Duty Service (EDS). The EDS team, which serves almost a million residents, responds to crisis welfare and safety situations outside regular office hours. To support this team, BFC needed a comprehensive solution that could handle multiple case types with specific workflows, maintain data security, and replace manual processes to reduce errors and improve reporting. The solution also needed to offer more automated self-service to free the team from routine administrative tasks. The EDS team deals with time-consuming, emotional, and complex cases, including supporting the homeless, children who need protection, and those having a mental health crisis. Each situation requires careful assessment, recommendation of a solution, and/or a referral.

Newcastle City Council (NCC), the local government authority for the city and metropolitan borough of Newcastle upon Tyne, faced a significant challenge in making community grants more accessible to its citizens. The council needed a digital-first case management solution that could integrate multiple technologies, automate processes, and deliver accurate reporting for compliance. The ultimate goal was to provide a streamlined and transparent end-to-end application process for a range of grants, including the Clear Air Zone (CAZ) grant. The council team was burdened with handling numerous unstructured emails and telephone calls, leading to manual re-keying of customer data and reliance on spreadsheets for payment processing. With limited validation capability, the risk of claim fraud, error, and audit failure was high. Additionally, NCC was legally required to reduce traffic-related pollution levels, necessitating a simple way for owners of specific vehicles to check eligibility and apply for grants.

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) is the primary provider of acute and specialist care services in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, serving a population of around 470,000 people. This number significantly increases during peak visitor times. RCHT embarked on an outpatient transformation program to optimize their referrals and provide patients with more control and convenience over their appointments. The goal was to reduce the time patients spent traveling to hospital appointments and waiting rooms and improve access to follow-up hospital care. However, the challenge was that there were numerous different referral pathways into their organization, making it difficult to streamline and optimize the process.

Valleys to Coast (V2C), a housing provider managing over 6,000 homes across South Wales, was facing significant challenges with its legacy systems. The lack of interoperability between two housing management systems resulted in poor visibility of cases, leading to data duplication and inadequate reporting. The organization was in dire need of a unified case management solution that could be easily adapted by in-house staff to meet the evolving needs of tenants. The customer service staff was under immense stress due to the need to constantly follow up with internal teams and manage tenant experiences. The lack of visibility into case progress led to inefficiencies as multiple advisors often ended up working on the same case simultaneously. The shift to remote work further exacerbated these issues.

Worcestershire County Council (WCC) serves over half a million people across an area of 672 square miles. The council had previously consolidated its services and implemented a new Netcall contact centre platform. However, they were keen to further exploit the potential of the integrated chatbot technology. The council aimed to provide a 24/7 service to citizens, reduce inbound call transfers to customer service teams, refine processes to support customer enquiries efficiently, proactively provide information and guidance, and manage peak communication volumes. The council's journey to enhance efficiency and customer experience had progressed from voice channel to web chat and then to chatbots. However, agents were still required to handle queries that could be resolved through chatbots. The council was focused on refining chatbot processes to make them more effective for citizens.

UK Power Networks, serving 19 million people across 8.3 million homes and businesses, faced a significant challenge in meeting the growing demand for new levels of support and services. The rising global energy prices, the pandemic, and recent climate events have increased the number of customers facing vulnerability. The company had to tackle the climate crisis by connecting renewable energy, electric car chargers, and low carbon heating. They also had to improve services to meet customers' evolving needs and go above and beyond for the communities served. Furthermore, they had to support customers in vulnerable circumstances. The challenge was to quickly and efficiently transform their services to meet these demands.