How we can help you

We have considerable experience in helping organisations to deliver suitable technology to support customer feedback processes. Our experts work with you to map processes, identify improvements, assist delivery and improve again by making sure that the technology works effectively with your processes to support your people in resolving customer problems.

We have a wealth of experience of customer relations and complaint management technology. We have:

• Managed the design and deployment of complaint management tools within Customer Relationship Management (CRM) projects
• Advised on the design of in-house customer feedback monitoring systems
• Developed, using a web-based application, a Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour multi-agency solution, to handle referrals and monitor trends
• Configured and implemented Electronic Service Delivery and CRM systems

Sample requirements - case management system

This is a sample template for specifying the requirements for an enterprise-wide case management system.

A system that allows users to record and manage casework including:

• Enquiries
• Complaints
• Suggestions
• Compliments
• VIP enquiries (enquiries raised by elected officials etc)
• Information request

The system should be adaptable – to meet any future changes of process or structure (such as organisational restructuring).

Accessing the system

To summarise:

1. The system should be a browser-based application that can be accessed using a browser or by a link from a intranet site.

2. The system should be capable of integrating with a user’s authenticated log-in (such as active directory) to prevent the need for users to log-in across several systems.

Recording customer contact and cases

The requirements:

• Any customer-facing employee (any employee that has contact with a customer) should be able to access the system to record a new case.
• Customers should be able to use an online form on the web site (or email the organisation) that will automatically populate details into the casework system.
• The system should also provide easy-to-use capabilities for those employees that often handle and resolve initial telephone and email enquiries on the spot.

Users logging new cases should be able to:

1. Search for the customer.

2. Select the customer, if details found, and display existing contact history.

3. If the customer is not on the system, record the customer’s contact details.

4. Record details of any involved third parties (such as a elected official, lawyer or family member).

5. Record customer profiling data for the customer (such as ethnicity, disability, gender, age and so on).

6. Link to an address lookup solution to pre-populate any address fields (based on entry of a post code). This must not preclude the normal entry of addresses and the entry of overseas addresses.

7. Use a lookup facility to select the operator(s) involved and select journey and station (where appropriate).

8. Record a summary of the case received (3000 characters minimum) and any other required information (such as expected action or preferred method of contact).

9. Use a spell check facility on ‘long text’ fields.

10. Locally scan any written correspondence or collect emails from the enquiries mailbox and attach any electronic documents (such as policy files or digital images).

11. Identify if an enquiry can be resolved immediately by linking to a set of frequently asked questions.

12. Use a user-friendly interface, such as using ‘point and click’ or ‘keyboard short cuts’ to move around the system, that also supports users with features such as input validation (such as preventing a user from entering a future date where appropriate) and on-screen help and instruction.

13. When a case has been logged, the created case will be automatically allocated to the casework team for assignment.

14. If a complaint case is escalated, the case should be automatically re-assigned to a group of more senior users. Functionality should also allow for manual re-assigned to a different team.

15. The system will need to provide an easy to use web interface for:

• Customers to record appeals (and attach files) and track progress
• Secure interactions on cases by partner organisations/suppliers
• Employees working on the case from a remote location

Processing cases

The following should apply:

1. The system should collect details about the user (or customer) that created the case (including third parties) and generate a unique reference number that can be used to track the case (at every step of the process).

2. The system should generate a configurable notification email to the team or user that has been allocated the case. The email should include a hyperlink to the case.

3. The system should be capable of automatically acknowledging receipt of any new cases received by web form or email.

4. The system should allow a user (with appropriate access privileges) to re-assign a case to another user. The system could helpfully display the current number of cases allocated to each user during the process of assignment (or re-assignment) – such as showing the number of cases next to each user on a dropdown list. Bob Jones (6 cases) Ade Akinbiyi (2 cases) Claire Miller (3 cases)

5. Each case will allow a user to:

• Capture all relevant case details, in case fields configurable by the user such as number of fields, list values, size of fields, validation rules and so on.
• Decide to reject a case with reasons.
• Decide to refer a case to another organisation.
• Record or update the status of a case.
• Categorise one to several service area issues and associated failures (such as complaint about Service performance and Staff conduct issues at a specified location -preferably using a map).
• Update or add to the categorisation of cases – changing or adding one to several issues to a complaint.
• Re-assign the case to another user or team.
• Send a message to another user, such as notes of a phone call and set an alert (to notify the case owner).
• Record an outcome (such as agreed or partly agreed or not agreed) at each escalation stage.
• Record any follow-up actions to be done (such as pay compensation or review a procedure or change a service) with the outcome.
• Allocate follow-up actions to a user to complete.
• Record any key learning points identified from a case.
• The system must have a calendar that allows working and non-working day based targets to be set up.
• Use a link from the case to create an external review case (such as Ombudsman or trading standards enquiries).
• View current process stage, case status, received date and target date.
• View related web pages or procedural guidance.
• View any online contact from customers about the current case.
• View a print-friendly version of the current screen holding information (such as notes of a phone call) regarding the case.

Correspondence (letters and emails): 

1. Correspond with customers, operators and any other associated case contacts using email and/or letters. The email facility must be fully integrated and easy to use.

2. Use standard correspondence templates and paragraphs to produce and attach letter and email correspondence at each step of the casework process but also allow manual editing of standard text. This should allow the inclusion of any details held about the case.

3. Allow both the author’s details (current user) and other users’ (such as person assigned to respond to an appeal) details to be used in letters and emails.

4. Access and review all documents and files related to a case – by case type - including ability to preview listed documents

5. Allow documents to be protected from amendment or deletion

6. Allow the use of a signature image file when writing to someone

7. The system should generate a reminder message (or email) for the assigned officer where a response is due or outstanding. If the response remains outstanding, the system should generate a reminder to an identified user for escalation.

Managing casework

The system will generate a unique reference number that can be used to track the feedback (including all stages of the escalated complaints procedure).

The system will allow users to:

1. View all active cases

2. View all active tasks

3. View all active correspondence

4. View closed cases

5. Perform ‘one-click’ searches of cases (with ‘one-click’ links to individual cases) to show:

• A numbered list of unassigned cases at each stage
• All open cases assigned to current user
• All open cases assigned to current customer
• All closed cases assigned to current user
• All closed cases assigned to current customer
• All cases assigned to current user
• All unfinished tasks assigned to current user
• All unfinished correspondence assigned to current user
• Search cases for specific issues and findings similar to current case (such as all train operators cases about delay)
• All cases assigns to other users if permissions allow

Workflow management

In summary:

1. The system must allow a user to monitor the progress of a case during the life cycle of a case.

2. Users will require simple access to a diary-based screen that gives users a reminder (such as 'Review case') where necessary and the ability to generate user-defined tasks.

3. The system will need to allow the generation and assignment of tasks:

4. The system will also need to provide a user-friendly reporting tool to allow users to generate statistical and graphical analysis, with drill-down to cases, such as:

• Time taken (in days) to acknowledge case
• Time taken (in days) to refer case to operator
• Time taken (in days) to obtain a response from departments
• Average time taken (in days) to obtain responses from departments
• Time taken (in days) to respond after receipt of response from a department
• Time taken (in days) to respond to a customer case
• Average time taken (in days) to respond to a customer case
• Age of open cases
• Percentage and number of cases received
• Percentage and number of cases rejected
• Percentage and number of cases received (by process stage)
• Percentage and number of cases closed
• Percentage and number of cases open at each process stage
• Percentage and number of cases closed at each stage
• Performance (in or out of time) in completing tasks by team or individual user
• Trends by associated categories
• Learning and improvement points identified

5. All reports are required by user defined category, such as by office location, problem type and service issue.

6. Ability to run pre-set reports using basic parameters such as:

• Date from… to…
• Closed cases / Open cases / All cases

7. The system should allow reports sets to be regularly published and available to core groups of staff such as:

• Casework manager
• Casework team(s)
• Policy and compliance team 
• Legal team
• Marketing team
• Senior management team

8. Ideally, the system should also allow published statistics to be made available on the web site in a customers’ area and external partners’ area.

9. The system should support the analysis of cases by the geographical areas such as presenting data on a map.

10. The system should provide a set of published data views to allow users to utilise either existing reporting tools or Microsoft Excel to analyse the data collected during the case management process.

11. The system should allow a user to monitor customer satisfaction with the casework procedure using a standard survey form of questions.

12. The system should also allow specified users to send a survey form to all or a random sample of customers who have used the casework process within a user-defined period. This should include data merged from case information.

13. The system should allow the collected data to be linked with case and customer records to effectively analyse customer opinions of the casework process.

14. The system should allow ongoing change and adaptation following the initial configuration and deployment of the solution by the administration users.

15. The system should allow a local administrator to simply add new fields and update any representation of the organisation’s structure and services within the system.

16. The management of lookup lists should be capable of being maintained by a local administrator and provide a simple user interface.

17. The management of word processing and email templates should be capable of being maintained by a local administrator and provide a simple user interface.

18. The supplier will need to provide adequate training on system use.

19. The supplier will need to be able to deliver ongoing training that meets the needs of new users.

20. The supplier will provide a user-friendly guide and relevant documentation to explain the system’s functionality for specialist and non-specialist users.

21. The system should give users the ability to remotely access cases (from home or another site).

22. The supplier should provide details of how the system can be installed within a secure environment for the database and application software.

23. The system must allow case access to be restricted to read-only access for certain users.

24. The system should allow the details of certain cases (such as cases about sensitive issues) to be accessible to permitted users.

25. The system should allow the creation and update of user profiles with differing access rights.

26. The system should allow administrator users to quickly and simply create, delete and update users – without causing any adverse effect on existing case files (such as removing the name of a deleted user from old case files).

27. The system should allow administrator users to simply allocate users to an individual team or group of teams.

28. The system should provide a comprehensive audit trail that allows system administrators to trace all updates, including letters and emails, to a case – allowing access to type of update performed, date and time of the update and the user who performed the update or created a new record.

29. The system should allow staff to run reports that show, for example, all deleted tasks or cases together with the user who performed the action.

30. The system should provide a simple process for regular backups of the database.

31. The system should provide configurable facilities for managing the archiving of data held in the database.

32. The supplier should provide options and costings for migrating data and associated files from any existing database(s) to the new system.

33. The system must be capable of integration with address data solutions, Microsoft Outlook (for email), Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Active Directory (for user logins).

34. The system must be capable of integration with a variety of external data sources such as CRM and financial systems.

• On acceptance of any new case
• On rejection of any new case
• On escalation of a case to the next stage of a process
• On completion of another task (such as generating a task to issue a 'Response letter' on completion of a 'Draft response letter')
• On adding remedial actions

• On acceptance of any new case
• On rejection of any new case
• On creation or completion of tasks

35. The system should prevent certain tasks from being deleted or allow certain tasks to be deleted only by advanced users. Certain data may need to be collected on completion of a task – the system should allow a user to complete data fields on completion of a task.

36. The system should display the number of tasks outstanding for the current user. Tasks should be clearly displayed and allow simple identification of tasks – in time, overdue, completed in target time, completed outside target time.

37. The system will also need to allow the generation of correspondence (emails and letters):

• Statistics, analysis and reporting
• Customer surveys
• System configuration
• Training
• Remote access to cases
• Security
• User administration
• System audit
• Data backup and archiving
• Data migration
• Integration