A CRM solution to increase efficiency and enhance customer service
“We found Incremental extremely professional and were impressed they delivered on time and within budget. Being a charity, every penny counts so this was very important to us.”
Stuart McSkimming, Head of IT, Shelter
Shelter is a charity that helps over a million people a year struggling with bad housing or homelessness.
Shelter gives advice, legal support, information and advocacy to people in housing need and tackles the root causes of bad housing by lobbying government and local authorities for new laws, policies and investment. As a leading expert on housing in Britain, Shelter works with the housing sector to promote good practice, publish reports and deliver professional training.
The existing system had a number of problems and was failing to perform to the standard required
Shelter used a case management system to manage information across all of its services including its contact centre and face-to-face site services. Used by 60 employees, the system had a number of problems and was failing to perform to the standard required so the decision was taken to replace it.
In assessing its options, Shelter worked with experts from external consultancies to draw up a list of case management systems used by top legal firms, as well as solutions offered by large CRM vendors.
A Request for Information (RFI) was issued to help Shelter narrow down its options to a shortlist of 10 products and vendors, who were then given a detailed Request for Proposal (RFP) outlining Shelter’s operations and its requirements. The shortlist was made up of a mixture of case management and CRM systems, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
After a rigorous selection process, four vendors were invited to meet with Shelter to demonstrate their proposed solution. Following this, Shelter concluded that the best solution for its needs was a combination of a case management system integrated with Dynamics CRM.
"Demand on the call centre was exceeding capacity so a key objective of the project was to reduce data entry time per call, therefore increasing efficiency and allowing the helpline to assist a greater number of people."
An innovative solution to reduce call time
Incremental worked with Shelter to discuss the integration of the products and drew up a statement of work based on the detailed specification that had been included in the RFP. The interface between the case management system and Dynamics CRM was to be kept as light as possible, with Dynamics CRM configured to accommodate Shelter’s requirements.
The project was divided into phases with the first covering Shelter’s contact centre – a national helpline handling 140,000 calls each year, offering advice to people who have issues with their housing or are in danger of becoming homeless. Incremental customised Dynamics CRM so it captured caller information such as their contact details, the nature of the problem and any other significant issues.
For every call that the centre handles, a form has to be completed. This form was radically enhanced in Dynamics. The new form enables single-click creation of contacts and pre-populates many fields – all configurable on a user-by-user basis.
A crucial part of the solution was the ‘Alert Monitor’. When cases are entered in the system it is essential that any safeguarding and welfare concerns recorded against potentially vulnerable callers are instantly flagged. The solution enables real-time visibility of any linked alert records.
Conflict searches were another important area to embed into the new solution. Stuart McSkimming, Head of IT at Shelter said “Shelter must ensure it complies with legal requirements stating that help should not be provided to callers when a conflict of interest exists.” Consequently, the solution provides enhanced search capabilities to identify related contacts and cases that could represent a conflict. Stuart McSkimming explained “Helpline workers are now able to terminate such calls at an early stage of the process, avoiding time wastage and legal compliance issues.”
Another challenge of the project was accurately transferring a large quantity of data (including several million records) to the new system. Specialist Dynamics CRM integration software was employed to migrate information from Shelter’s incumbent systems using complex mapping and data transformation. The software was used to create an offline data repository for reporting to ensure the live system was protected from resource heavy queries. The integration now enables two-way communication with Shelter’s legal back office systems.
“Following a rigorous selection process, it was concluded that the best solution for our needs was the combination of a case management system integrated with Dynamics CRM implemented by Incremental.”
Increased productivity and efficiency
Phase one of the project has been delivered on time and within budget. Stuart McSkimming said “When we went through the RFP process, Incremental gave us detailed time and cost estimates and now we are in the project they have kept to those estimates. Being a charity, every penny counts so this was very important to us.”
The new solution has enabled Shelter to meet its project target of reducing the average helpline call time by three minutes. Stuart said “This increase in efficiency means that our call centre is able to handle more calls and has improved customer service levels”.
The solution also enables Shelter to ensure it complies with its legal requirements with regards to conflict of interest. In addition, the ‘Alert Monitor’ ensures any safeguarding and welfare concerns recorded against potentially vulnerable clients are instantly flagged to the member of staff handling the call.
“The new solution has increased the productivity of Shelter’s helpline and met its target of reducing average call time by three minutes. This increase in efficiency means that the call centre is able to handle more calls and has improved customer service levels."
An ongoing journey
Phase two of the project addresses how Shelter delivers advice over a longer period of time to assist with a number of issues, where cases might be handled and tracked across several sources of help. The solution is being built using the case management functionality of Dynamics CRM, allowing Shelter to track activities on each case with a full audit trail across all the stakeholders involved, which will increase overall efficiency and productivity.
Stuart McSkimming explained how Shelter is enjoying the security and assurance of using a Microsoft product – “Not only have we bought the solution we need today, but we are now part of the continual improvement and development of Dynamics going forward. We now have access to the whole range of Microsoft tools and look forward to exploring this.”
"Not only have we bought the solution today we need today, but we are now part of the continual improvement and development of Dynamics going forward."
