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Newlyn Collection
Services |
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Company background |
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Newlyn Collection Services Limited was established in 1999. Prior to this, the business had been run as a family concern, offering road traffic debt enforcement recovery and the collection of commercial rent arrears, the latter being the focus of the company. |
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All the directors had
extensive knowledge and
experience within the
collections industry,
having worked for one of
the largest bailiff
companies in the country
for a combined total of
70 years. Together with
other key personnel who
had also worked at a
selection of bailiff
companies, they formed
Newlyn with the
objective of offering
enforcement collection
to local authorities for
the recovery of council
tax, non-domestic rates
and road traffic debt. |
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The company initially
based itself in London,
starting with one local
authority client; the
London Borough of
Waltham Forest, who
Newlyn are proud to
confirm remain a client
to this day. The primary
aim of the business was
to offer its clients a
sustainable qualitative
service - and with this
in mind, the company
applied for work through
presentations and tender
selection processes to
neighbouring boroughs.
The ethos of a constant
bailiff presence in all
of its client areas
worked and with it, the
growth of the company.
Today, Newlyn’s client
base extends to over 35
local authorities and
the services provided
include the collection
of council tax,
non-domestic rates, road
traffic debt, debt
recovery, tracing,
enforcement of bail and
no bail warrants,
information gathering,
bankruptcy and charging
order services. |
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The Business Challenge |
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Newlyn Collections were
manually dialling
clients, whilst
receiving incoming
enquiries. Essential
management information
on how many calls were
in the queue, how many
hung up, what was the
average wait time and
agent performance were
all absent. The absence
of data on staff
performance made it very
difficult to identify
who needed additional
training or indeed
praising. Therefore, it
was assumed that staff
were not working to
their full capacity. The
existing solution was
not modular, which made
growth impossible and to
change the system was
the only route forward. |
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This lack of data
created a gap in the
contact centre structure
as it was difficult to
monitor the staff and
report generation was
virtually impossible.
First and foremost,
managers at Newlyn
wanted to increase
productivity and
efficiency in the call
centre. As Newlyn is a
dynamic, ever growing
company, it was crucial
they found a supplier
that could provide a
reliable, well supported
system. |
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Newlyn took the
opportunity to review
the entire market for
the solution looking at
CTI products linked to
the telephone system,
soft diallers and hard
diallers. At this stage,
Newlyn contacted
TouchStar to find a
blended inbound and
outbound contact centre
solution with
sophisticated tools
offering high levels of
Customer Relationship
Management (CRM). |
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Contact Centre Manager,
Lucy Sargent said, “We
desperately sought an
up-to-date solution as
we had expanded and
outgrown our existing
solutions and our staff
were not working to
their full capabilities
with a manual dialling
system”. |
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Our Solution |
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The solution provided to
Newlyn gave them a
blended inbound/outbound
system that
significantly increased
the representative/call
ratio. TouchStar Connect
gave them intelligent
scripting, allowing new
employees to adapt and
perform easily within
the new operation. They
could deploy programmed
call-back messages that
helped to create
additional contacts
through their inbound
collections channel and
with the software’s
‘whisper-coaching’
technology, dedicated
trainers could monitor
and coach sales agents
in real-time without
interruption to
potential clients. |
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The integration with
their self built CRM
package meant that the
agents had the most up
to date client
information available at
all times, being able to
write back to the
database made writing
letters and emails a
simple coordinated task. |
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Benefits |
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The benefits of the
TouchStar solution were
apparent immediately to
Newlyn. And as
collections increased
daily and staff
motivation climbed -
they became more
successful and targets
were beaten each day. At
first, the staff were a
little apprehensive
about the “big brother”
technology but soon
found the benefits
outweighed any
misgivings. The agents
were able to operate in
two teams, providing a
competitive element to
the workforce, leading
to increased motivation
and productivity.
Further key benefits
included: |
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- The value and
the quantity of
collections
increased, leading
to greater customer
satisfaction.
- The monitoring
and coaching of the
agents provided
immediate feedback
that improved
performance and was
valuable to the
management in
spotting the weaker
performers. This led
to increased levels
of customer
satisfaction as
revenues were
collected more
efficiently.
- Organisational
control vastly
improved due to the
use of the TouchStar
Connect reporting
suite.
- The integration
of the client
software within the
agent script allowed
data to be written
back to the database
without error or
duplication,
massively improving
productivity.
- Monitoring and
reporting has
improved agent
training, provided
healthy competition
and has in turn
increased
motivation. Improved
team morale amongst
the call centre
staff has created an
atmosphere in which
they are encouraged
to beat their
targets.
- Simultaneously,
there has been a
decrease in staff
turnover as training
can be better
targeted at the
weaker performers
before they start to
fail, get frustrated
and leave.
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Newlyn have been very
satisfied that there has
been an increased level
of both customer and
client satisfaction. |
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Implementation |
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TouchStar Connect was
installed and connected
to a Samsung telephone
system. The system was
rolled out with features
added as staff got used
to the changes. From
this point onwards, the
24/7 support was
essential and as staff
gained in confidence and
took on more of the
administration tasks,
they became more self
sufficient. |
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The installation and
training was achieved
with minimal disruption
to the business, clients
were unaware that the
changes were taking
place. |
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Lucy Sargent concluded,
“I was very impressed
with the smooth and
quick installation - the
TouchStar staff provided
us with support
throughout. The training
was helpful and done in
a way that was easy for
the staff to pick up –
there was no disruption
at all during the
changeover.” |
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