Is your call centre solving problems or just recording them?
Contact-centre demand can expose weak passenger information, a failed journey or a task that genuinely needs a person. An Authority must tell the difference before trying to reduce calls.
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A busy customer contact centre is often treated as a cost centre. The queue becomes a target to shorten, or a prompt to build a better app. Yet its calls and messages can identify where the passenger experience is failing.
A passenger calling about an 08:05 that did not arrive is reporting a service failure. A question about ticket validity after a diversion may arise because information was missing or hard to find. A lost-property report might be completed through an online or in-app form, while another passenger may need help by telephone. An undifferentiated total of these contacts conceals the decision the Authority must make.
Code contact reasons consistently and compare them with network events. A spike after cancelled journeys points to service delivery and passenger information. Repeated refund calls can expose a rule or process passengers cannot follow. More calls about a digital form may show that the form has failed its users.
Read the reason for contact, not only the queue
Call-answer time matters, particularly when telephone support is the practical route to help. It does not show whether the service is working. The Authority needs to see the contact reason, relevant route or journey, channel used, whether the matter was settled and whether the passenger got back in touch.
First-contact resolution, or first-time fix, records whether an issue was resolved in the first interaction without further contact or transfer. By contact reason, it is more informative than answer time alone. It must not reward an Agent for closing a case prematurely.
Telephone and assisted channels are part of a public service. They matter to passengers with limited digital access, communication needs or unusual cases. The task is to identify enquiries that can be completed online and those that need a person who can investigate.
| Contact pattern | What the Authority should investigate | Evidence worth reviewing |
|---|---|---|
| Repeated live-running enquiries | Whether location and disruption information reached the passenger promptly and accurately | Passenger reports against the actual journey and the information published at the time |
| Lost property or routine enquiries | Whether self-service captures the facts once and supplies a reference | Completion, abandonment and repeat-contact rates |
| Missing bus, refund dispute or complex complaint | The operational event, fare rule or case process behind the contact | The linked case record, owner and outcome |
| Contacts from passengers needing assistance | Whether assisted routes are findable and properly staffed | Answer performance, transfers and feedback |
Make self-service do a real job
“Digital deflection” is a poor term when it means making a telephone number harder to find. A digital route should spare passengers from repeating themselves and give the Authority usable information. A lost-property form should capture enough detail to support a search, acknowledge receipt and provide a tracking reference. The information must then reach the person handling the case.
Proactive alerts and reliable real-time information can prevent avoidable contacts. They cannot compensate for poor reliability. Incomplete or late operational data will create a new category of complaint if it is simply placed in another interface.
Agree a small contact taxonomy with Operators and Suppliers. Include the definitions in reporting arrangements and review significant spikes alongside reliability, punctuality, cancellations and fare data. Focus on the handful of patterns that persist, rather than setting a generic target to reduce call volume.
Put the measures into the contract conversation
For contracted services, separate the performance of the contact channel from that of the network. Answer time, abandonment and channel accessibility may be Supplier measures. Contacts about cancelled journeys, incorrect real-time information or an unresolved refund may fall under a different obligation and require action from another party.
Where LiteFranchise™ is adopted, OneContact brings enquiries, compliments, feedback, lost property and complaints into a single customer-service experience across the network. 16Dashboard is available separately for KPI calculation and Service Period payment reporting. Before the measures are used to judge performance or payment, the Authority must agree the measures, data sources and case definitions. The customer contact centre must remain a place where passengers can get help. Its records should show where passengers are having to work around faults that need fixing elsewhere.
Useful questions
Use a recent spike in contacts, not an annual average, to test whether reporting enables the Authority to act:
- Can we distinguish contacts caused by a channel problem from reports of a service, fare or information failure?
- For the main contact reasons, can we link cases to a route, journey, disruption, ticket transaction or digital task?
- Which transactions can passengers complete through self-service, with an acknowledgement and case reference, while assisted routes remain available?
- Do reports show repeat contacts and first-contact resolution by contact reason, rather than a single overall figure?
- When a pattern emerges, is a named Authority, Operator or Supplier responsible for the underlying fix, with a date to review it?
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