The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of service provided by the Stirling Council call centre with a view to determining the essential elements of best practice.
The method involves questionnaires to Scottish local authorities about their use of call centres, interviews with Stirling Council managers and call centre employees and some participant observation to gain a detailed view of both the management and operations of the call centre.
The findings are grouped into the topics of communication, training, quality and systems/technology, with improvements suggested in a few areas. Overall, the approach to service quality in the call centre tends to be more qualitative than quantitative with a good awareness of learning and management related issues.
The value/contribution of the paper lies in the definition of essential best practice call centre management components, presented in a framework involving aims, enablers and results. This model is proposed for generalised use in both the public and private sectors; it would henceforth benefit from some testing and further refinements.
