Mobilising a resilient and responsive workforce in less than 2 weeks to ensure minimal disruption to customer services.
Since 2011, Capita has helped The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to deliver Automatic Enrolment, employing 150 staff across two sites and operating a multi-channel customer contact centre to deliver direct communications to every employer in the UK.
As the Covid-19 situation developed, our customer services team faced several challenges; more than 50% of customer support staff were either not able to work through self-isolation, caring for vulnerable dependents or unable to reach the site. Many staff formed part of a customer contact centre using desktops and physical telephone handsets to carry out their roles, however they had no home-working capability. These critical customer service staff lacked the hardware, software or processes which would allow them to work effectively from home.
In line with the lockdown, the operational site was closed. Within two days, operational services had been resumed. In those 48 hours, hardware and software solutions were sourced, new processes were authored, agreed and implemented, and training was delivered to contact centre staff showing them how to use the new equipment and new software applications to best handle customer enquiries from home. Within the same 48 hours the necessary internal HR and InfoSec approval was gained, as well as sign-off from TPR.
In the following week, we continued to increase homeworking capacity, building and shipping machines, and making outbound calls to staff to remotely re-train them. Less than 2 weeks after the lockdown began, all staff – over 150 individuals across all areas – were working from home. 97 desktop computers were built, profiled and shipped to front-office staff with monitors, keyboards, mice and headsets.
A combination of quick decision making and internal approvals with key personnel to share ideas, solutions and best practice has ensured a successful outcome for TPR. Their feedback has been positive, aided by continued dialogue and engagement and of record keeping, allowing the Capita team to provide TPR with regular, clear updates about the state of play. Our customer support team have subsequently handled nearly 10,000 employer enquiries about automatic enrolment working safely from home.
“The safety and wellbeing of our people remains a priority, as is enabling them to deliver essential services for our clients. From having no homeworking capability to reinstating customer services for TPR in two days is a fabulous achievement. The initiative, determination and resilience that our team has shown to deliver the best possible service for TPR is exemplary.”
Michael Alner, Capita’s Managing Director for The Pensions Regulator contract,
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