ByMatthew Arnold
It’s easy to walk into a large contact centre or processing office and see lots of people, head-sets on or working from screens – all looking busy – but are they really being effective…? But take a closer look, and it doesn’t always look so rosy. Without purpose, you can very quickly find yourself, and…
ByMatthew Arnold
As many of you may know, I’ve worked in quite a few Local Authority Housing Benefit departments – these teams provide benefits to vulnerable adults to assist with rent and council tax payments if they are on low incomes. Not only is there usually ample scope for improvement, it also means those that need the…
ByMatthew Arnold
My last two posts have been about queues – I promise, this will be last one about queues for a while….! This one goes back a few years, but I see it time and again, in offices, contact centres, post offices, coffee shops… I was helping a council with their Housing Benefits claims, and spending…
ByMatthew Arnold
There was a interesting item in the news a few weeks ago regarding a plateauing of sales at the discount food stores, relating to the shopping experience, particularly the often poor queuing process. Call me sad (!) but I regularly look at the different queuing systems businesses use. The post office. The benefits office. Petrol…
ByMatthew Arnold
I’ve helped quite a number of Housing Benefit departments in the last 15 years, including helping Darlington move from 60th in the national league table to the top 10 – where they remain (based on customer end-to-end time). I also helped Milton Keynes reduce their end-to-end time from 60 days to 20. Likewise Middlesborough. And quite…
ByMatthew Arnold
Do you ever think that some of the management books and technical jargon are far more complicated than they really need to be? A recent podcast by the Freakonomics team reminded me of some simple service “production line” stuff that seems to get forgotten. Over the years, I have worked in many claims processing systems,…
ByMatthew Arnold
I was reminded of this great quote from the master of the Toyota Production System today: Costs do not exist to be calculated. Costs exist to be reduced. – Taiichi Ohno As a Chartered Accountant, I am well trained to understand cost – especially with respect to Activity…
ByMatthew Arnold
Arguing for an end to back offices and target driven approaches, John Seddon outlines theories that could permanently alter management approaches. When I was a young man the term ‘back office’ did not exist. Today it is in common parlance; it is considered axiomatic that back offices are a feature of efficiency; Whitehall extols their…
ByMatthew Arnold
So, you post your form off to the post office/tax office/council/insurance company/bank/cable company (* delete applicable). What happens next – from your perspective? “They” are busy getting on with it – right? Two weeks go by – so you give them a call? You spend a while on the phone as they track down your…