Source: Surrey County Council

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/0845+contact+centre+telephone+number?opendocument

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0845 contact centre telephone number

The contact centre uses the cheapest number available without having to pass on a cost to the residents of Surrey. However, there is an issue with the way the number is being charged by some phone companies.

The contact centre decided to use an 0845 for a number of reasons:

   * use of an 0870 number would incur costs to the general public and therefore is not acceptable
   * use of an 0800 number would incur costs to the council and therefore the council tax payer and is not acceptable
   * use of an 020 number (as we are based in Kingston) would cost the majority of Surrey residents more than using an 0845 number and is therefore not desirable

Unfortunately, some household telecoms companies choose not to package the 0845 number in their free local call packages, and charge it at the maximum rate that they are allowed to by law. We recognise that this is not a satisfactory situation.

The telecoms regulatory body Ofcom are aware of this issue. They are trying to rush through new regulations to bring the households telecoms companies into line by using a new 0345 local rate number. This would be charged at a lower maximum rate, and could only be used by Government bodies and charities. In the meantime, if you feel you are paying too much to call 0845 numbers, you should speak to your phone provider.
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Does the fact that costs do not have to be passed on tell them something?? Do they expect telephone companies to hand out free lunches???  ::)

I've never heard of any "law" on the maximum price of 0845 numbers. That's a new one!  ;D

Surely this garbage needs a response.

As local numbers haven't existed since 2004 giving the excuse that it could cost Surrey residents more because they are outside of Surrey is tosh - it wouldn't matter if they were in Aberdeen!

And surely the 0345 numbers have been avasilable for sometime now.

And get in the real world re speak to your telephone provide -. "Dear BT I think I am paying too much for using 0845 numbers" Dear Keith, I'm sorry to hear that, let us reduce them for you". I'll try that when I go shopping as well.

Keith wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2008 at 12:41pm:

And get in the real world re speak to your telephone provide -. "Dear BT I think I am paying too much for using 0845 numbers" Dear Keith, I'm sorry to hear that, let us reduce them for you". I'll try that when I go shopping as well.

Indeed! Dear Tesco, I am paying too much for Heinz Baked Beans in your supermarkets and request you reduce them to the price of your own-brand "no frills" baked beans.

Of course, we must remember that revenue share is available. Therefore, no telco would ever include them in packages (assuming that the "wholesale" cost is covered) because fraudsters could then get one of these numbers and call it from an inclusive package.

Surrey County Council are one of the leading abusers of NGNs for Contact Centre use amongst UK councils because they offer no other phone numbers at all to the general public other than this 0845 number and the 0845 number is frequently subject to long queues before you reach an operator.  Worse than that the staff who answer are classic robotised "we know nothing about anything" type call centre staff who have no geographic knowledge whatsoever of the County they are supposed to take calls on behalf of and no understanding of normal basic council issues (let alone the cost of phone calls).

The last conversation I had with their contact centre manager about 3 months ago showed that senior management at Surrey CC were in reality perfectly well aware of the 0845 overcharge issue and this person claimed they were in the process of moving to using an 03 number shortly.  But then I was told by another contact centre manager that they were working towards switching to a geographic phone number three years ago.  There is no excuse whatsoever for them using 0845 and other large county councils like West Sussex use solely geographic phone numbers for contact.

Can I make the following points:-

1. Can Dave, DaveM or bbb_uk remove the verified number listed as the Surrey County Council switchboard (020 85418800) that I originally provided to this site two or three years ago and replace it with 01252 716021 (showing it as the Surrey County Council - Contact Centre) this is because the original 020 number now plays a message telling callers to call the 0845 number for the Contact Centre.  This new 01252 geographic number for their contact centre in the Unverified section is in fact the former direct geographic number for Farnham Library (still shown at www.ucas.ac.uk/students/startapplication/wheretoapply/southeast/surrey) and various other places via Google so I imagine this is why it still feeds in to the Contact Centre as direct public contact with the libraries on the phone was also ended by Surrey CC in favour of the Contact Centre.  The fact that the previous more memorable geographic number for Surrey Contact Centre (their old main switchboard number in Kingston Upon Thames) has now been closed down by having a redirect message to call the 0845 number put in place clearly tells us the abusive and control freakish forces in the Contact Centre management that we are up against.

2. The way to deal with the outrageous tissue of lies that is listed by Surrey CC to defend their use of 0845 on their website is to make an Official Complaint using the three stage complaints procedure with Surrey County Council (that finally leads to the Local Government Ombudsman).  To do this call the dedicated Official Complaints line numbers on 020 8541 9100 or 020 8541 9811 (its interesting that these are still geographic numbers on their website) saying you want to make an Official Complaint about these statements regarding their 0845 number and want the complaint formally investigated and to receive an official response.   Do not under any circumstances agree to accept an informal resolution.

Or it may be easier to just email county.complaints@surreycc.gov.uk along with links to the sticky articles on this website which show why 0845 and 0870 numbers are not local rate plus of course a link to the COI's Contact Centre Guide V3 and the page number with the section on cost to the citizen consumer of 0845 and 0870 numbers.  Again make clear this is a formal complaint and you will not accept an informal resolution.

3. If you live in Surrey you should also email your local County Councillor to complain about this matter.

You can find your County Councillor and their email address at:-

www.surreycc.gov.uk/members/membook.nsf/webSelectMember?openform

4. You might also want to copy any emails of complaint you send to Surrey CC's complaints section to the following people:-

The Leader of the Council

Nick Skellett - n.skellett@surreycc.gov.uk

The Chief Executive

Richard Shaw - richard.shaw@surreycc.gov.uk

The Cabinet/Executive Member for Policy and Performance

Helyn Clack - helyn.clack@surreycc.gov.uk

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 6:10pm:

1. Can Dave, DaveM or bbb_uk remove the verified number listed as the Surrey County Council switchboard (020 85418800) that I originally provided to this site two or three years ago and replace it with 01252 716021 (showing it as the Surrey County Council - Contact Centre) this is because the original 020 number now plays a message telling callers to call the 0845 number for the Contact Centre. …

I've done that.

I've also removed 01483 568496 (Guildford Library) and 01883 714225 (Oxted Library) which go through to the same recording giving the 0845 number.

01483 543599 is Libraries Information Service and still answers as such.

Dave wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 8:19pm:

I've done that. I've also removed 01483 568496 (Guildford Library) and 01883 714225 (Oxted Library) which go through to the same recording giving the 0845 number. 01483 543599 is Libraries Information Service and still answers as such.

Thanks Dave. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

However since Surrey County Council seem to have the same attitude towards the availability of geographic alternative numbers for their Contact Centre as Sky then regretfully I suspect it is only a matter of time before the 01252 old Farnham library number GN route to the Contact Centre is also replaced by a recorded announcement saying call 0845 by its abusive management and/or their private sector call centre partner. :o >:(

That is why it is important to make a formal complaint to the Council and/or email your local County Councillor about the matter.

Well actually I intend to make a formal complaint and email the Cabinet Member and Chief Executive and all 81 County Councillors (with a copy of the rubbish on their website)  about this matter but as there is no group email address for all Councillors unfortunately that is a whole lot of work and may take me a little while to get round to. :-[

I have written to Surrey CC. Will report back on reply.

Keith wrote on Apr 27^th, 2008 at 4:08pm:

I have written to Surrey CC. Will report back on reply.

Well done Keith.  Do you live in Surrey as obviously they will take a lot more notice of the views of Surrey County Council Taxpayers who live in the County.

To get their attention my recommendation would to to ask for it to be treated as a formal complaint at Stage 1 on which you will not accept an Informal Resolution.  This then starts heading down the track towards the Local Government Ombudsman.  They take official complaints like this much more seriously than mere comments or suggestions from the public.

Cunningly they won't tell you about the official complaints procedure unless you know about it and will just treat your complaint as an informal comment on which they don't have to act or respond. :o >:(

You might also want to refer them to the excellent example set by Mole Valley District Council (the next tier down in Surrey providing swimming pools, planning decisions and rubbish collections etc) who adopted policy banning the use of 084 and 087 prefixed numbers at their July 2005 full Council meeting.

See Minute No 141 - Motion 2/2005 at www.molevalley.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/s/Council_Minutes_190705.pdf

NGMGhost,

Yes I do live in Surrey. Here is my email to Chief Exec and Leader of Council. I will follow your advice re formal complaint and reference to Mole Valley after I have heard back from them. I'm aware of your good work on this front at Mole Valley  :)


Nick/Richard,

Can I please refer you to the web page on the Surrey CC site headed up : "0845 contact centre telephone number". The information given here is seriously inaccurate and you are getting (justifiably) adverse comments on sites such as Saynoto0870.com.

In particular your site says:

"use of an 020 number (as we are based in Kingston) would cost the majority of Surrey residents more than using an 0845 number and is therefore not desirable"

This is not true. Local calls were abolished in 2004 and therefore a call to my next door neighbour costs the same as a call to Aberdeen so the fact that you are based in Kingston is completely irrelevant. What is more for most people (packages) the cost of an 0845 call is more than a cost to an 020 number (regardless of location).

"Unfortunately, some household telecoms companies choose not to package the 0845 number in their free local call packages, and charge it at the maximum rate that they are allowed to by law. We recognise that this is not a satisfactory situation"

This is very misleading. In fact all telecoms companies exclude 0845 numbers and for good reason. They have to because 0845 numbers can be a revenue generating numbers so if they were included in packages it would be very simple for criminals to purchase them and then call them continuously from and inclusive package and defraud the telcoms company.

"The telecoms regulatory body Ofcom are aware of this issue. They are trying to rush through new regulations to bring the households telecoms companies into line by using a new 0345 local rate number."

Again this is very misleading as the 03 numbers have been in place now for
sometime and many public bodies (including OFCOM) use them, so this should not be given as an excuse.

"In the meantime, if you feel you are paying too much to call 0845 numbers, you should speak to your phone provider."

And what would you expect to happen if I contact BT about their 0845 rate? Do you really expect that because of my call they will reduce the price? They are a
commercial business. Giving out such advice to council tax payers is rather
patronising.

I hope you can respond in a positive manner by:

a) Publishing alternative geographic numbers to your 0845 numbers
b) Adopting an 0345 number.

Regards Keith.

A good letter Keith but I would make sure to also copy this to your local County Councillor, who would hopefully take up the cudgels on your behalf and indeed may not support the current Surrey CC policy on this matter.

The message posted on the Surrey County Council website here about its 0845 number has been amended. They have now published an alternative number (020 8541 9944) which is now in the Saynoto0870 database.

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0845 contact centre telephone number

The contact centre decided to use an 0845 for a number of reasons:

   * Use of an 0870 number would incur costs to the general public and therefore is not acceptable.
   * Use of an 0800 number would incur costs to the council, and therefore the council tax payer, and is not acceptable.
   * Surrey County Council is not charged by our telecoms supplier for use of our 0845 number, nor does it receive any share of the public's telephone charges and was therefore seen as the fairest option.

Unfortunately, household telecoms companies do not package the 0845 number in their free local call packages, and generally charge it at the maximum rate that they are allowed to by Ofcom, the industry regulator. We recognise that this is not a satisfactory situation.

Ofcom are aware of this issue and have recently issued a series of phone numbers beginning with 03 which are charged at a cheaper rate and in some cases form part of inclusive call packages.

It is the recommendation of Sir David Varney's report, "Service transformation: A better service for citizens and businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer" (PDF, 751KB) that all publicly funded contact centres move to the 03 number range from November 2007. To date, only a small number of contact centres have issued 03 phone numbers due to technical and contractual issues within the telephony industry.

At present, Surrey County Council is not able to issue an 0345 number. We are however in talks with various suppliers and hope to reach a solution over the coming months.

In the meantime, we can advise you that you will be able to contact us on 020 8541 9944 should you wish to avoid using our 08456 009 009 number. We should, however, make you aware that in certain circumstances, for example temporary relocation of our contact centre, you may find that only the 08456 009 009 number is effective.
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Gone is the suggestion that the 0845 is the cheapest solution and that calls to an 020 number would cost the majority of Surrey residents more.

Do you think that changed because of my email to the Chief Exec and leader of the council. If so I'm feeling somewhat smug.

If so I'm impressed with the change in wording happening so quickly. The initial info was rubbish, but the change was very quick and the excuse for not yet adopting an 03 number is plausable when you consider some of the stories we have heard and the lack of promotion for the number.

I think it right to say well done to Surrey CC.

Keith wrote on Apr 28^th, 2008 at 1:10pm:

Do you think that changed because of my email to the Chief Exec and leader of the council. If so I'm feeling somewhat smug.

I'm sure you're not the only person who has contacted Surrey CC about this.  ;)

Dave wrote on Apr 28^th, 2008 at 1:13pm:

Keith wrote on Apr 28th, 2008 at 1:10pm: Do you think that changed because of my email to the Chief Exec and leader of the council. If so I'm feeling somewhat smug. I'm sure you're not the only person who has contacted Surrey CC about this.  ;)

Come on, give Keith some credit. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

sherbert wrote on Apr 28^th, 2008 at 1:30pm:

Dave wrote on Apr 28th, 2008 at 1:13pm: Keith wrote on Apr 28th, 2008 at 1:10pm: Do you think that changed because of my email to the Chief Exec and leader of the council. If so I'm feeling somewhat smug. I'm sure you're not the only person who has contacted Surrey CC about this.  ;) Come on, give Keith some credit. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

Yes, sorry Keith, my post appears somewhat smug in itself.  :-[

Good work Keith.  [smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]

I'm sure - In particular NGM Ghost was hassling. Wouldn't want to take the credit from him.

However it was with in hours of them getting my email and they appear to have changed each of the very things I was complaiing about.

Anyhow it makes me think the efforts are worthwhile so I don't want to think my email was not the cause.

Waiting for the feedback from the Surrey PCT now  :)

Thanks.

Actually the credit is due to SCC really. After all consider all the letters/emails we write to little effect and therefore get no acknowledgement for any success. I spent ages on National Rail Enquiries and many others and my stuff is clearly only a very, very small subset of others efforts when you compare the amount of posts here.

PS The 'I'm sure' was agreeing with the point that others did a lot.

I noticed that Keith was on first name terms with the CEO and Leader of the Council at Surrey CC in his email.

If he is someone they know with some clout then they are more likely to have responded quickly than if a mere complaint from Jo Bloggs was received.

In fact judging from the contempt with which their Highways department treats most matters, even life and death ones, even if one cc's the CEO and Leader of the Council I would say that the only possible explanation is that Keith is someone who has some influence with the powers that be at Surrey CC.

Normally a letter to the CEO would simply be passed to Customer Services only to receive the usual contemptuous and patronising reply (with the lies previously shown on their website) many weeks later.

Keith wrote on Apr 28^th, 2008 at 1:54pm:

Thanks. Actually the credit is due to SCC really. After all consider all the letters/emails we write to little effect and therefore get no acknowledgement for any success. I spent ages on National Rail Enquiries and many others and my stuff is clearly only a very, very small subset of others efforts when you compare the amount of posts here. PS The 'I'm sure' was agreeing with the point that others did a lot.

I had several previous conversations with their heads of customer services in previous years and was repeatedly lied to that a geographic number alternative would be along shortly to replace the 0845.

I suspect the CEO of Surrey CC is aware of recent Ofcom correspondence about 03 numbers and the revised COI gudiance and that this has suddenly prompted them to have to concede they are wrong.  I think they were already working towards an 03 number anyway and that this is an old web page written for them by their call centre partner that they were unaware still existed.  Thus with what I believe are steps they have in hand to eventually bring in 03 the email you sent alerted them to the embarassment of this web page that they were therefore, at this stage, happy to rapidly correct.

However note that they only shut down the geographic alternative number listed on this website (their old main switchboard number) within the last 3 to 4 months, which suggests that other parties at Surrey CC or their contact centre partners were still trying to force us to use the 0845 number. :o >:( [smiley=thumbdown.gif]

I'm afraid I don't know know these guys from Adam so no influence involved. In my business I do deal with very senior people in multi national organisations and it is normal to work on a first name or nick name basis, so out of habit I always do that. I've never come across anyone who has objected and has expected to be called Mr. Smith or Ms. Jones and I prefer people to address me as Keith rather than Mr. XXX or Sir when I'm dealing with them.

Just rec'd an email from Nicolas Skellett:

Dear xxxxxx,

Can I thank you for your email and for drawing to my attention inaccuracies on the Surrey County Council?s website with regard to the use of our 0845 telephone number. Please be assured that the page in question has been updated with our latest understanding of the situation.

The page in question now reads as follows:

Hello, I thought I'd join the topic. My name is Simon Pollock and I am Head of Customer Services at Surrey County Council.

Yes indeed, we did change the web page after Keith alerted us to the fact that the old page was incorrect and out of date, and yes I was a little embarrassed. Many thanks Keith for getting in contact.

We are looking at using an 03 number and can see the benefits to the residents of Surrey. The issue that we have at the moment is that some telcos are charging organisations by the minute for using the 03 number range, which, as a public sector organisation means that we have to pass the cost onto the council taxpayer. This extra charge to the council taxpayer effectively takes the maximum per minute charge over the agreed national limit, albeit indirectly, so we are waiting for Ofcom to advise us of their recommendations to see if this indirect charge can be removed. I should stress that not all Telcos are levying this corporate, per minute charge. We will of course not wait for too long and may make an interim decision to move to an 03 number.

I should also say that changing a main phone number is quite a big job (reprinting leaflets, repainting vans, restamping 2m library books etc) and if we do change, we will migrate the number over a long period to reduce costs. It should also be noted that we operate in a democratic environment so I would expect the decision on whether or not to change our main access number to be made by our elected councillors following a report from our Customer Services department on the implications of changing over.

I hope that clears things up a little and will check back in the topic to try and answer any further points, but once again, many thanks for bringing to our attention.

Simon

Again, well done to Keith. :)

Simon_From_Surrey wrote on Apr 29^th, 2008 at 8:54am:

Hello, I thought I'd join the topic. My name is Simon Pollock and I am Head of Customer Services at Surrey County Council.

Simon,

Congratulations at least on your bravery in sticking your head above the parapet here given the longstanding and outstandingly bad record of Surrey County Council in repeatedly promising over 3 or 4 years that it would bring in a geographic number and then not doing so.  At least Surrey County Council seems to care about what is said about it in public on this site.  It may perhaps care rather more when I have emailed all 81 of your councillors (apart that is from those dinosaur councillors like Terry Dicks who do not have email and where the County Council inexplicably fails to provide an arrangement where emails are printed out and posted to such councillors) with a link to the discussion on this website.

I have had telephone conversations with several of your predecessors in my former position as a district councillor to the effect that you were working on introducing an official geographic alternative number (rather than the unofficial one listed by this website) and then none of those promises were ever honoured and your heads of customer services kept on changing (ok its a rotten job I accept and nobody probably wants to stay in that post forever).

More recently the 020 number that I added to this site three or four years ago as a geographic alternative number for your 0845 (the old main Surrey CC switchboard 020 8 number ending in 00) was changed to play a message telling people to call 0845 instead.  This kind of behaviour is only normally seen by more ruthless call centre operators determined to earn revenue share such as Sky.  Why was this number shut off and no longer able to reach the Contact Centre when it had worked perfectly well for several years? :o [smiley=thumbdown.gif]


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Yes indeed, we did change the web page after Keith alerted us to the fact that the old page was incorrect and out of date, and yes I was a little embarrassed. Many thanks Keith for getting in contact.

There is no excuse for what was on your website at this pont in time and I have a copy of it and intend to include it in my email.  It was clearly the kind of rubbish used by more abusive commercial call centre operators like Capita to try and bamboozle the public in to going away.  It is disgraceful that a local authority should ever have had such rubbish on their website and especially in 2008 and especially after I had raised this issued several times with your heads of customer services.


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We are looking at using an 03 number and can see the benefits to the residents of Surrey. The issue that we have at the moment is that some telcos are charging organisations by the minute for using the 03 number range, which, as a public sector organisation means that we have to pass the cost onto the council taxpayer. This extra charge to the council taxpayer effectively takes the maximum per minute charge over the agreed national limit, albeit indirectly, so we are waiting for Ofcom to advise us of their recommendations to see if this indirect charge can be removed. I should stress that not all Telcos are levying this corporate, per minute charge. We will of course not wait for too long and may make an interim decision to move to an 03 number.

Simon I was given this kind of excuse in January when I last challenged your use of 03 but the fact of the matter is that two UK Police forces have now switched their contact centres to using 03 so it clearly is possible to move to 03 if you put your customers first.  Alternatively why use 03 at all and why not use a geographic 020 number that will then not cost any extra to run.  The old arguments that because you are in Kingston this will cost people in Farnham extra no longer apply as all telcos charge the same price for all 01/02/03 numbers regardless of where you are calling from.  Also all 01/02/03 numbers are covered by inclusive calling plans on fixed lines and bundled minutes on mobiles and 0845 numbers are not.

West Sussex County Council only uses geographic numbers for all their points of contact and Surrey only has the one 0845 number on which callers are consistently guaranteed to receive an abysmal service with no direct option on the IVR system for one of the most likely reasons for calling (reporting a road defect) and instead politically correct putting up front of your social services options that only the minority of the population use.  The staff in your call centre usually seem to have no clue whatsoever where anywhere in Surrey actuallu is and I would describe 65% of them as hardened call crunchers who convey no passion at all for their job or serving the County's Council Tax payers.  Surrey County Council's contact centre is really one of the very worst I can think of anywhere in the public sector. :o >:(

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I should also say that changing a main phone number is quite a big job (reprinting leaflets, repainting vans, restamping 2m library books etc) and if we do change, we will migrate the number over a long period to reduce costs. It should also be noted that we operate in a democratic environment so I would expect the decision on whether or not to change our main access number to be made by our elected councillors following a report from our Customer Services department on the implications of changing over.

Simon,

I'm sorry but these are just the same old time worn excuses that hardened NTS 084/7 number users have persistently always used to justify the retention of their 084/7 numbers and to claim they are easier to use because they will never have to change them etc, etc.  But now we find all of the more hardened 0870 number abusers like Sky are finding it perfectly easy to move to 0844 numbers from 0870 in order to retain their revenue share if and when Ofcom ever force 0870 numbers to be charged at 01/02 prices (Ofcom having already delayed this from 1st Feb 2008 for ridiculous reasons they were actually aware of all along).  As I hope you will know Ofcom has no plans to change 0845 to geographic call rate.

As to changing numbers its easy.  All you do is bring in the new 03 number and put in on your website and in new brochures as and when they are printed put a message on the 0845 number telling callers to redial your new 03 number that you have introduced to ensure the lowest possible calling costs to all your customers/council tax payers.

Also I have recently had long discussions with one of the BBC's most senior Customer Service managers about the costs of moving to 03 from 084/7 prior to his writing a recent Board paper recommending in favour of the BBC switching to all 03 numbers and he told me there was only a very minor extra cost in terms of operating their call centre but it was absolutely trivial in comparison to the overall call centre operation bill.

03 numbers were introduced in August 2007.  Ofcom has such an 03 contact centre number and two UK Police forces (one of these is Essex) that were using 0845 have switched to using them.  So why hasn't Surrey County Council? You can't say its down to contracts as your authority has been aware of the issue for over three years and so could have renegotiated any contract and changed telephony supplier by now if Surrey CC had the political will to do so.  Unfortunately Surrey County Council has the kind of culture where you tend to believe your own nonsensical spin (such as the rubbish that was on your own website about your use of 0845 numbers) rather than keeping focused on the best interests of your residents rather than your own internal operational convenience.

I would note that the local authority on which I was previously a councillor unanimously passed a resolution in July 2005 deciding that it would not use 084 or 087 prefixed numbers for any contact lines used by the public.  Can you explain to me why in the intervening period of nearly three years your authority has still not taken a cue from Mole Valley's excellent example.  Especially when I have raised the matter several times previously with your predecessors at Surrey County Council and have been given undertakings you would be switching to using a geographic phone number in the near future.

See Minute 141 (Motion 2/2005) at www.molevalley.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/s/Council_Minutes_190705.pdf where this decision to not use 084/7 numbers was taken by the Council's July 19th 2005 meeting.

Finally with regards to the decision about any move to 03 numbers being taken by your Councillors surely as you have abolished the Committee system at Surrey CC it will only be those 10 of your 81 Councillors on your Cabinbet (Executive) who have the opportunity to make such a decision.  Also can you tell me by whom at Surrey County Council the original decision to change from your 020 numbers to a single 0845 contact centre number was taken?  I wonder if that decision was actually taken by any Councillors? ;)

Also although the other 71 County Councillors are not on your Executive quite a number of them (including many members of the Lib Dem opposition) are on your Scrutiny committees and so surely could easily have brought forth a motion for discussion on this issue at any time?

I look forward to your further comments on this matter.

I am posting below a copy of an email I received from Kate Davies (a previous manager of the Surrey County Council Contact Centre) on 27th April 2004.

Ms Davies then subsequently telephoned me more than once to assure me that Surrey County Council was now working urgently to try to change its telecoms supplier to one that could offer access to the Contact Centre using 01 or 02 prefixed numbers.

But four years on (almost to the day) and still SCC continue to use 0845 and continues to try to fob the public off by pretending that they genuinely have any plans to switch to 03 numbers.

You will notice all the caveats above by Simon Pollock about any change being subject to the agreement of our councillors to the extra costs etc, etc.  No doubt they will still be playing this same game in another four years time. :o >:( [smiley=thumbdown.gif]

Note that the telecoms supplier is Cable & Wireless.  The same people that are telecoms supplier to the BBC. ;) ::)


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-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Re: FW: The New Dehumanised 0845 LTS Call Centre? Date:      Tue, 27 Apr 2004 11:22:20 +0100 From:      Kate Davies <kate.davies@surreycc.gov.uk> Thank you for contacting me with your comments.  At Surrey County Council we are always interested in hearing what our customers think of the service they receive from the Contact Centre and I appreciate receiving your feedback. I have contacted Cable and Wireless, our telephony providers in order for them to respond to me about your comments regarding 0845 and 0870 numbers and am waiting for their reply.  However I would appreciate being able to speak directly with you about your comments. When would be a convenient time for me to telephone you and what contact number would you like me to use? Regards Kate Davies Kate Davies Contact Centre Manager -------- Original Message -------- Subject:      FW: The New Dehumanised 0845 LTS Call Centre? Date:      Fri, 23 Apr 2004 14:30:00 -0000 To:      kate.davies@surreycc.gov.uk Dear Ms Davies, I understand you are the County Call Centre manager at Surrey County Council and so felt sure that you would be interested in the comments in my email below in response to a letter I have just received from Roger Archer-Reeves saying that not only the public but also district council Members must now call the County Call Centre Service with any enquiries that they may have. Apart from my extremely strong personal dislike of the poor quality of service that always results from such catch all telephone based customer service centres I am even more annoyed that the Contact number can only be called on an anticompetitive 0845 NTS number that is not included in all inclusive calling packages and that also costs 300% more than it costs me to make any other uk national or local geographic call in the daytime. If you are not aware of the strength of feeling that is currently gaining ground amongst the general public against such NTS numbers I suggest that you visit the website www.saynoto0870.com I look forward to receiving your comments. Regards,

Continued/....................

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-----Original Message----- Sent: 23 April 2004 15:02 To: Roger Archer-Reeves Cc: debbie.ellis@surreycc.gov.uk; nick.skellett@surreycc.gov.uk; Subject: The New Dehumanised 0845 LTS Call Centre? Dear Roger, I am in receipt of your letter of 20th April, addressed to Dear MR ________. I do not wish to appear critical of what will no doubt be explained to me as being a move to save LTS officer time in Dorking for finer things etc, etc but I have to say that as a district councillor I can only deplore a change that requires our own calls and our constituents calls to now be handled by a depersonalised central call centre for the whole county in Kingston, rather than by personnel based in Dorking and familiar specifically with the road network and the public transport systems in the Mole Valley area. Although the frequent modern business trend in recent years (although with very some notable exceptions such as the Nationwide Building Society) has sadly been to replace personal contact with staff directly familiar with a caller's problems with huge and depersonalised call centre factories I cannot say that I in any way either welcome or support this business trend.  Of course if it could be definitively proved that Mole Valley LTS customers were actually likely to end up receiving a better service as a result of such business "modernisation" then I might of course be prepared to reconsider my position. Can I also make the following specific points regarding the introduction of the centralised County Call Centre (not even a centralised Call Centre for just LTS issues) for handling Mole Valley LTS specific calls:- 1) Even if you believe this is the most resource/budget efficient way to handle calls from the general public to also ask Mole Valley district councillors to use the same interface is inevitably going to be like the proverbial red rag to the bull?  People do not usually become district councillors so that they can only then end up attempting to address their constituents problem by having to call the same centralised, depersonalised and dehumanised call centre that will no doubt frequently also turn out to be the cause of many of their constituents complaints. 2) I totally deplore the decision to use an 0845 non geographic NTS call handling system number for this call centre since all such NTS numbers allow the company receiving the calls to share part of the incoming call revenue with their telecoms provider and thereby give every incentive for the company/body running the call centre to introduce long and complicated touch tone menu systems, usually followed by the inevitable subsequent 5 minutes on hold.  In addition 0845 and 0870 NTS numbers are also charged at rates substantially above the rate charged for ordinary geographic UK calls by most telecoms providers (it only costs me 1p per minute to call an ordinary geographic UK number on a weekday daytime but costs 4p for an 0845 "localcall" number) and most disgracefully of all are also completely excluded from all inclusive calling packages offered by companies such as BT, Onetel, Tiscali, Talktalk and many others.  Since the County Council is not in fact a commercial company I think it is most inappropriate that its phone number for accessing the Mole Valley LTS should be anything other than either a standard geographic (eg 01306) or a freephone (0800 or 0808) phone number. In short I cannot in any way welcome this change as a positive step forward and it seems a great pity that it appears to have been taken without deciding to consult our opinion on the matter as locally elected members before its implementation. One wonders is this is in fact perhaps going to turn out to be another Pixham Lane type issue? Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss this further. Regards,

Hello all,

I will try and answer as many of the above points as I can.

Why did we shut off the old geo number that was listed on the site?
I wasn't aware until I just read the above post that it was on the site, otherwise I would have let you guys know an alternative. The number was shut off at the time that we installed a new phone system for two reasons. Firstly, calls on the old numbers would have had to be compressed three times by the time that they reached our operators, leading to very poor sound quality, not very good if you have a hearing impairment. Secondly, our strategy is to issue one phone number to our residents to make it easier to access our services without being passed from pillar to post by council employees, this has worked by enlarge and we now have about 20% more people contacting us and very few call transfers. The issue of us using an 08, 03 or 02 number to do this is a separate issue.

Why are we giving the same excuses as in January?
Because, unfortunately there has been no shift between Ofcom and the telcos since January in resolving the issues

Can we use an 02 number for resident access?
Yes we can in theory, although we would need to assess the implications on sound quality and being able to route it across multiple sites in the situation where our Contact Centre building is inoperable. We would also need council approval

Why is Social Services first on the IVR menu?
It isn't, Libraries and Registrations are as they are our busiest lines. We are also preparing a possible solution to removing the menus altogether which could be introduced at the same time as any number change.

Surrey Contact Centre staff are hardened call crunchers
You wouldn’t expect me to let that one go would you? Last year our Contact Centre came runner up (to Lego) as the “Best Centre in Europe for Customer Service” in the CCF awards, was cited as a best practice case study by the Cabinet Office, was a finalist in the CCA awards in the category “Best Public Sector Contact Centre” and internally our staff are not targeted on call length or number of calls taken, but are targeted on quality of service given. They are also very nice people who love working for Surrey residents! We try very hard to do the best that we can and hate getting things wrong, so if you have had a bad experience, we are sorry and you are more than welcome to let me know directly and I will try and resolve things.

It’s not expensive to change the phone number
Totally agree, if we did it slowly using the web, messages on the old number and phone book updates to start with it would reduce any costs to our residents, which is what I would recommend. Apologies if my post was a little vague on this one.

Council Approval
As changing our phone number is a major change to the way people access our services, we wouldn't ammend anything without our elected member's approval, just wanted to reiterate this.

Apologies if some of this post sounds a little starchy

Simon

Simon_From_Surrey wrote on Apr 29^th, 2008 at 1:18pm:

I will try and answer as many of the above points as I can. Why did we shut off the old geo number that was listed on the site? I wasn't aware until I just read the above post that it was on the site, otherwise I would have let you guys know an alternative.

Don't you think as Head of Customer Services you should be directly aware of such matters.  It sounds to me like Cable & Wirless closed the number down when they became aware of it without informing you because it was costing them money in lost revenue share.  Of course I know you don't get the revenue share.  What you get instead is a cheaper contract price with Cable & Wireless and/or cheaper outgoing call prices than if you did not use an 0845 number.  This is certainly their setup with the BBC, even though the BBC claims to get no direct revenue share.


Quote:

Why are we giving the same excuses as in January? Because, unfortunately there has been no shift between Ofcom and the telcos since January in resolving the issues

Rubbish.

Ofcom introduced 03 numbers and adopted one itself in August 2007.  Two UK Police forces (one of these is Essex) have replaced their 0845 numbers with 03 numbers that are live now.  Why have you missed Sir David Varney's recommended introduction date for 03 number of November 2007.  Ofcom's position is that this change is not up to them and that it is up to your organisation to make the change.  They merely facilitated it by introducing the new 03 number range which is directly equivalent to your 0845 number with no changes in your call centre handling equipment being necessary.  Don't blame Ofcom for your delays and for Surrey CC deliberately igoring Sir David Varney's deadline.


Quote:

Can we use an 02 number for resident access? Yes we can in theory, although we would need to assess the implications on sound quality and being able to route it across multiple sites in the situation where our Contact Centre building is inoperable. We would also need council approval

I would tolerate poorer sound quality for a cheaper call price.  In fact I have done by calling your hidden 020 number and do not notice any reduction in sound quality.  I suspect this is just another lie invented by Cable & Wireless to try to justify yet further delays in bringing in an 03 number as this will cost them a lot of lost revenue share.


Quote:

It’s not expensive to change the phone number Totally agree, if we did it slowly using the web, messages on the old number and phone book updates to start with it would reduce any costs to our residents, which is what I would recommend. Apologies if my post was a little vague on this one.

So why didn't you bring it in during November 2007 as Sir David Varney recommended.


Quote:

Council Approval As changing our phone number is a major change to the way people access our services, we wouldn't ammend anything without our elected member's approval, just wanted to reiterate this.

Your Cabinet or Councillors will do whatever they are told on an issue of this kind by your senior officers if the business case and Sir David Varney's and the COI's guidance on this matter is properly explained to them.

I highly doubt your county councillors have ever had the adverse implications of going on using 0845 for the Contact Centre properly explained to them by the Council's Directors and Chief Executive.  The adverse effects of continuing to use 0845 is in reality a hidden secret mainly under the control of your senior Director staff.  Having been a councillor I know that these people in fact usually have far more real power and ability to control decisions than most of the councillors.  They are also of course much better paid than any of the councillors including its Executive members!   So perhaps that is why to your well paid Directors and Chief Executive the extra cost of making an 0845 call only seems to them like only a small drop in the ocean?  In other words they are totally out of touch with the financial situation of the real average Council Tax payer :o

:o

Hello again.

It's difficult to answer the previous string as my previous answers are still the answers I would be giving. We may have to accept that we have a difference of opinion.

You may already be aware that I am fully up to speed with the recommendations of the Varney Report and the discussions, changes in advise and real world events that have occured since the report was published as I hold a seat on the Cabinet Office Contact Council, which reports into Sir David. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/public_service_reform/contact_council.aspx

The recommendation to move to the 03 number range has been foremost on my mind this year, however, as I have stated, contractual problems within the telecoms industry have so far prevented us moving across our number. These contactual problems will not exist for all organisations, which is one of the reasons why some have moved numbers and some haven't to date.

I am pleased to hear that the 020 number worked well for you, I will ensure that it is kept available until such time as we have fully tested it for sound quality and resiliance and assuming it passes will work to make it more promenant.

You may be interested to know that for a lot of this year I have been speaking at public sector conferences to ensure that the Varney recommendations are widely known, including the switch away from 08 numbers, so am very much on the side of this forum, which is what I am doing here in the first place.

Surrey County Council is working to implement Varney recommendations, some of which are challenging to achieve in what our residents would consider reasonable timescales, however, please be assured that they are happening.

Simon

Welcome to Say no to 0870 Simon. It's good to see that an alternative number is now available and that the message on the Surrey CC website has been amended.

The case for 03 is the need for a geographically-priced non-geographical number range.

The increased competition in the market of 0845 provision has driven down the cost of incoming calls to the point where service providers can be paid, rather than paying. I think it's reasonable to assume that the cost of incoming calls on 03 will be driven down in a similar fashion.

From an operational point of view, 03 numbers are identical to 0845 and other NTS numbers, so the cost to the telcos should be the same. 03 represents a shift of charges from the caller to the receiver, or to put it another way, with 0845 numbers the caller subsidises the receiver's service (NTS).

The NTS is the front end of a call centre, as it were. The costs for it should therefore come from the budget of operating the call centre, in the same way as the telephony hardware does. 0845 transfers that burden to the caller and with this in mind, in theory we could continue in that vein and increase the call cost to subsidise the receiver's telephone equipment.

Service providers are using 0845 NTS numbers because they are free to them. Thus, there's no proper assessment of whether there is a business case for them and there's nothing to drive down the cost of the NTS.


On a more general note, I think there are still some public sector services which use 0845 on the basis that it is "local rate" or "lo-call" and/or that a national geographical call costs more than a local one. I know this has been the case with some police forces. One's "local rate" is obviously what it costs for a local call and in some cases this is 0p/min for inclusive calls.

Just to say I have now rec'd an email from the CEO at SCC as follows:

Dear Keith,

Can I thank you for your emails and for drawing to my attention inaccuracies on the
Surrey County Council's website with regard to the use of our 0845 telephone
number. I asked for the information to be reviewed and changes were made straight away to reflect our latest understanding of the situation.

As you may have seen, the page in question now reads as follows:

..........

Thank you for raising these concerns.  I hope you find our response satisfactory.  
We shall be happy to go into more detail with you about the issues involved if you
wish.

Yours sincerely

Richard Shaw

Richard Shaw
Chief Executive
Surrey County Council
0208 541 9008

Again I have to say I am impressed with this response and have emailed back saying so.

ALTHOUGH I have only just become aware from reading copies of personal messages that the Geo number has not gone on to the Contact Us page and the reason given is that they don't want people to become dependent upon this number in case they have to relocate (I assume in an emergency) and the numbers becomes unusable (whereas the 0845 number won't). I don't think this is a good excuse as if both numbers are made available and the Geo one doesn't work then the other can be used.

As I wasn't party to that correspondance can I suggest NGM Ghost that you make that point to them.

Keith, I am pleased that you are impressed so far.

All, please don't worry about letting us know that we should post the non geo number on the contact us page, I just read about it in the forum, so don't need to hear it again in an email.

I will place the 020 number on the contact us page as soon as the web team arrive in this morning to get it live by lunchtime. It will have the usual caveat about not working in an emergency, as we won't be able to test that until our latest phone upgrade goes through in about three weeks. (We are moving to an off-site, more resilient, virtual set up). If the number passes the various tests that we would need to do, we would consider publishing it a little more widely, which should help mobile users particularly.

Beyond that, the plan is to pressure the two telcos that are causing us issues, to resolve their differences to allow us, (and a lot of the UK public sector) to recommend a switch to 03 numbers to our elected members (and yes, if we can confirm that the 02 number functions in a way that allows 24/7, crystal clear telephony, we should be able to up the profile of that number too)

Hope that helps

Simon

Simon,

Your continued support on this is much appreciated - if only we could encourage all the other councils and public services to be honest and switch to 01/02/03 numbers, then we'd be much happier :).

While I realise that you will have stringent rules on the various numbers you run, that they must meet your quality assurance tests and all that, I'm sure the general public will be happy with the 02 number being published, but made obviously aware that it might change in future (and that they will have to dial the 0845 number in that case).

jgxenite wrote on May 1^st, 2008 at 8:06am:

Simon, Your continued support on this is much appreciated - if only we could encourage all the other councils and public services to be honest and switch to 01/02/03 numbers, then we'd be much happier :).

Sorry jgxenite but Surrey County Council have been anything other than honest and straightforward over this matter and over several years.

Contrary to the impression Simon may have tried to give here if you visit www.surreycc.gov.uk you will find only the 0845 number listed at  the top on their Home Page and on their Contact Us page.  The new 020 number has only grudgingly been provided to this website and only in response to the fact that they shut down their more memorable previous 020 number as a route in to the contact centre that I posted on this website three to four years ago.  Instead they now just have a message to redial 0845 on that number.

Simon is giving us all the usual time worn government officer excuses that he has only been there 5 minutes and he knows nothing about the commitments that the previous Contact Centre Manager, Kate Davies, gave in 2004 that there would soon be an 01/02 number.  He then says they are prepared to wait indefinitely just so they can have almost the same number as now but starting 0345 instead of 0845 and then says oh dear there is a technical obstacle to that which may take months or years to resolve.  Whereas Essex Police, who put the public first, have gone ahead with getting a new 0300 number that there are no restrictions on issuing at the earliest opportunity.  Ofcom were also able to get an 03 number on about the first day possible at the end of August 2007.  So why can't Surrey County Council?  In reality it is all about appearing to be concerned about what the public says while hanging on to their 0845 number as long as possible since moving to 0345 would cost them a bit more money.

It is perfectly clear that Surrey CC are once again playing for time and that when I raise this issue in another year's time Simon will probably no longer be there and will have pushed off to some other bigger and better paid job.  His successor will then almost certainly claim to know nothing of the commitments that Simon has previously given.....................

Simon_From_Surrey wrote on Apr 29^th, 2008 at 4:08pm:

It's difficult to answer the previous string as my previous answers are still the answers I would be giving.

This is obviously because you have to toe a stock Surrey County Council propaganda line rather than being allowed to deal with the reality that Surrey County Council is trying to delay, delay and delay again and blame other parties for its own procrastination.


Quote:

You may already be aware that I am fully up to speed with the recommendations of the Varney Report and the discussions, changes in advise and real world events that have occured since the report was published as I hold a seat on the Cabinet Office Contact Council, which reports into Sir David. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/public_service_reform/contact_council.aspx

Its a shame whoever wrote the revised item on your website does not seem to be up to speed then. Where did the November 2007 date come from?  Its not in the Varney report.


Quote:

The recommendation to move to the 03 number range has been foremost on my mind this year, however, as I have stated, contractual problems within the telecoms industry have so far prevented us moving across our number. These contactual problems will not exist for all organisations, which is one of the reasons why some have moved numbers and some haven't to date.

Get a new 0300 number and stop trying to get an 0345 one that is the same as your old 0845 number (the public doesn't give a damn what the number is so long as it doesn't cost extra to call) and pay the contractual break penalties and you can undoubtedly have an 0300 number in operation within a month at most.


Quote:

I am pleased to hear that the 020 number worked well for you, I will ensure that it is kept available until such time as we have fully tested it for sound quality and resiliance and assuming it passes will work to make it more promenant.

Why isn't it shown on the Home Page on your website or under Contact Us as an alternative to the 0845?  The only thing that seems to have changed is that if members of the public complain to your contact centre staff they have now finally stopped repeatedly cynically breaking the law (Consumer Protection Act 1987 Part III - Misleading Price Indications) by claiming that it is only a "local rate call" and now offer anyone who complains your new hidden 020 number as an alternative.  This shows that the old "0845 is only a local rate call sir/madam" response was also a trained response, even though it was breaking the law.


Quote:

You may be interested to know that for a lot of this year I have been speaking at public sector conferences to ensure that the Varney recommendations are widely known, including the switch away from 08 numbers, so am very much on the side of this forum, which is what I am doing here in the first place.

A shame then that despite your awareness of the disadvantages to the public you still haven't yet managed to get the 020 number clearly shown as an alternative on your website!


Quote:

Surrey County Council is working to implement Varney recommendations, some of which are challenging to achieve in what our residents would consider reasonable timescales, however, please be assured that they are happening.

They are not at all challenging to achieve.  They just require Surrey County Council to put its residents rather than its bank balance first.  It was your mistake as a County in agreeing to the 0845 deal so you must pay the costs of extricating yourselves from it.  Yes I realise this means it will be spread across all Council Tax payers but this is fairer than those citizens who regularly need to phone the council (eg those needing adult social care) running up huge additional covert premium rate phone call costs.

Well, I can't admit to knowing anything about previous encounters with Surrey CC. However, I'm willing to give Simon a chance and see what happens. He says that the 020 number should be listed on their contact page by midday - let's see if this happens. Whether the number on the top of the front page changes, I'm not sure (that is a bigger job since it is an image, not normal text).

I guess I'm just less sceptical than you are :).

jgxenite wrote on May 1^st, 2008 at 9:36am:

Well, I can't admit to knowing anything about previous encounters with Surrey CC. However, I'm willing to give Simon a chance and see what happens. He says that the 020 number should be listed on their contact page by midday

Has he emailed you to say that then?  He hasn't posted to that effect on this website?  I wonder if their contact centre won't melt down (no call stats etc) if they begin to receive a large number of calls on the 020 number.


Quote:

- let's see if this happens. Whether the number on the top of the front page changes, I'm not sure (that is a bigger job since it is an image, not normal text).

Might take 2 days (email to their website contractor needed) rather than 2 hours then.  Even listing it as an International Number with +44 20 would be an improvement.  Even though I do not approve of such subterfuge to try and con the less informed members of the public in to still using 0845.


Quote:

I guess I'm just less sceptical than you are :).

If Simon can arrange for this 020 number to be publicised now then why did this not happen four years ago.  Simon seems a decent chap but it does not affect the unacceptable anti resident policy that Surrey County Council as a whole has knowingly been pursuing for the last four years or more while little Mole Valley District Council did the right thing by its residents.

Also note that their Contact Centre staff repeatedly lied that 0845 was "only a local rate call" if the public ever dared complain about the use of the 0845 number to its staff. :o >:( [smiley=thumbdown.gif]

Here you go :).


Simon_From_Surrey wrote on May 1^st, 2008 at 7:39am:

I will place the 020 number on the contact us page as soon as the web team arrive in this morning to get it live by lunchtime.

Call me simplistic but as Surrey County Council is based in Kingston Upon Thames and has decided to stay in Kingston Upon Thames then why does it not want to use an 020 8 prefixed number as these do not seem to be as fraught with the same cost or technical issues as 03 numbers.

It is perfectly possible to have a voip number on 020 8 that can be redirected anywhere and not use 03 at all.  The extra ripoff costs to either the caller (084/7) or the called party (03) associated with the whole NTS telco moneyspinning system can then be avoided.

03 numbers are faceless and break the local geographical number link for councils so as there are no longer any cost disadvantages of an 01 or 02 number then why can Surrey County Council not use one of those instead? :-? :-/

Presumably they use an 020 number because the company that is providing the contact centre is based in London? I agree though - it shouldn't be too difficult to get a VoIP number in the Surrey area that could be used, but I suppose it depends on how their contact centre is set up.

Mind you, if their contact centre is already using VoIP, it is perfectly easy to acquire an 03 number that has no inbound call costs, and just a small monthly rental cost (which, spread over all the tax payers in Surrey, would probably amount to nothing.)

jgxenite wrote on May 1^st, 2008 at 10:04am:

Presumably they use an 020 number because the company that is providing the contact centre is based in London? I agree though - it shouldn't be too difficult to get a VoIP number in the Surrey area that could be used, but I suppose it depends on how their contact centre is set up. Mind you, if their contact centre is already using VoIP, it is perfectly easy to acquire an 03 number that has no inbound call costs, and just a small monthly rental cost (which, spread over all the tax payers in Surrey, would probably amount to nothing.)

Surrey County Council are based in Greater London in the London Borough of Kingston Upon Thames.  This is because this area was in Surrey prior to the revision of local government boundaries and the expansion of Greater London in the early 1970s.  They have a huge and splendid building there so why move.  They had a white elephant project to move to Woking but then it was going to cost a fortune and it looked New Labour might abolish the County Councils so the plan was shelved.

So 020 8 is the correct local number for Surrey County Council.  I don't know where their call centre is.  It might be at County Hall in Kingston or it might be somewhere else.  03 numbers are only really needed where you have complex multiple call centres at different sites and rerouting and load balancing between them like NHS Direct.  As I understand it Surrey County Council only has a single call centre so doesn't an 03 number.  Also complex rerouting etc can be done with an 020 voip number.  The Foreign & Commonwealth Office only uses geographic 020 numbers but has call centres and switchboards all over the place.  They took a policy decision to stick with using geographic numbers rather than get their shiny new switchboard or outgoing call costs secretly funded by the hidden revene stream on 084/7 calls. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

The Contact Us page has been updated, as Simon said he would:


Quote:

We can advise you that you will be able to contact us on 020 8541 9944 should you wish to avoid using our 08456 009 009 number. We should, however, make you aware that in certain circumstances, for example temporary relocation of our contact centre, you may find that only the 08456 009 009 number is effective.

My only suggestion would be to, instead of having the number underneath, that it was actually included directly underneath (or next to) the 0845 number, but still retain the warning about it not always being available.

For what it is worth I think this is a case of 'job done'. After all if you had come across this site as it is now we would never have raised an eyebrow about it. Let's move on.

Surely we should be focusing on the masses of appalling examples out there.

Haing said that I do agree with jgxenite's comment about the positioning of the number.

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Question+Time+-+Additional+Questions+and+Answers?opendocument


Quote:

Question Time - Additional Questions and Answers The Question Time event on 18 September raised many issues and it was fantastic to have such active participants. Any outstanding questions which we unfortunately did not have time to answer during the event are listed here along with their answers. […] Q: Why does Surrey County Council use an answer phone 0845 number for accessing its services? Contrary to the recommend actions of David Varnby to switch to normal rate numbers. A: The council has been working to introduce a new 0345 number to replace the 0845 number. This new number will be included in all phone provider call packages. This number is set to be launched at the beginning of December. Surrey County Council will also introduce 0300 numbers, to run alongside the central 0345 number, which will be used to connect residents to particular services such as the library. Changing this number and raising awareness has, and will, take some time. Surrey County Council plans to launch an awareness raising campaign to support the number change within the next few months.

Dave wrote on Oct 11^th, 2008 at 6:42pm:

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Question+Time+-+Additional+Questions+and+Answers?opendocument Quote: Question Time - Additional Questions and Answers The Question Time event on 18 September raised many issues and it was fantastic to have such active participants. Any outstanding questions which we unfortunately did not have time to answer during the event are listed here along with their answers. […] Q: Why does Surrey County Council use an answer phone 0845 number for accessing its services? Contrary to the recommend actions of David Varnby to switch to normal rate numbers. A: The council has been working to introduce a new 0345 number to replace the 0845 number. This new number will be included in all phone provider call packages. This number is set to be launched at the beginning of December. Surrey County Council will also introduce 0300 numbers, to run alongside the central 0345 number, which will be used to connect residents to particular services such as the library. Changing this number and raising awareness has, and will, take some time. Surrey County Council plans to launch an awareness raising campaign to support the number change within the next few months.

And guess who was amongst the attendees at the Question Time on September 18th and was forced to put down that question in writing because Surrey CC decided to make a session originally billed as Question Time on Council Tax in to only a Question and Answer session on Adult Social Care. ;)

I did manage to get a verbal question in at the very end of the evening asking how come when they had placards behind the panel on the stage also showing Surrey's roads and schools that they were now only taking questions on Adult Social Care and was it because the New Labour government had told them they must consult the public on Adult Social Care (which less than 1% of the population consume but takes up about 80% of the net budget directly funded by Surrey CC Council Tax payers) and not on other things. The questionmaster (the newsreader Nicholas Owen) allowed my question but I then got some fob off answer from the Council Leader suggesting their might be questions on other issues at some point in the future.

I didn't dare ask the 0845 question at the meeting as it had specifically been ruled out of order as not relevant for response on the night in advance of the meeting.

Interestingly one of the adult social care lobbyists came over and congratulated me afterwards on giving Surrey CC such a hard time on not properly consulting on all the other matters as he fully agreed these were even more important to the vast majority of council tax payers in the County than Adult Social Care.

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2039777_county_hall_drops_0845_calls_for_cheaper_alternative

County Hall drops 0845 calls for cheaper alternative
By Richard Pain
21/11/2008

SURREY County Council is introducing a new 0345 contact number to try to make it cheaper for people to get in touch with the local authority.

It said it was making the change from 0845 after confused residents raised concerns about the cost of calling County Hall.

Surrey adopted the existing code five years ago when most public sector bodies switched to central call centres.

The cost of calling an 08 prefix remains at the local rate of about 4p a minute from a BT landline.

But most network providers do not include calls to 0845 codes in their inclusive packages, while it can cost up to 40p a minute to dial these numbers from a mobile phone.

In future, calls to the new 0345 prefix will cost no more than dialling 01 or 02 codes.

The new number, 03456 009009, goes live on December 1.

[…]

Source: Surrey County Council

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/SCCWebsite/SCCWSPages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Ring+the+changes?opendocument

Ring the changes

Published: 01/12/2008

Surrey County Council has a new general enquiries phone number. The new number is 03456 009 009.

Seven other 0300 numbers have also been introduced. These numbers will allow residents, who know which service they need, to call directly, bypassing the numbered options on the main 03456 009 009 number.

The changes have been made to help save residents money, take away the confusion around call costs and answer those residents who have expressed concern over the cost of calling us.

Calls to an 03 number from any network will cost no more than those to 01 or 02 numbers. 03 numbers are also included in most call packages.

The old 08456 009 009 number will not be switched off for up to five years. This means that Surrey County Council will not be incurring any additional expense by introducing the new number. Most material will be updated with the new number only when it would normally be refreshed or replaced.

Start using the new number today.

The direct numbers are:

   * Libraries - 0300 200 1001
   * Registration - 0300 200 1002
   * Roads and transport - 0300 200 1003
   * Schools - 0300 200 1004
   * Adult social care - 0300 200 1005
   * Children social care - 0300 200 1006
   * Jobs - 0300 200 1007

Dave wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2008 at 9:13pm:

Calls to an 03 number from any network will cost no more than those to 01 or 02 numbers. 03 numbers are also included in most call packages.

Shouldn't that be all call packages? Although I suppose to be doubly pedantic it is correct, as some packages don't include geographical calls.


Dave wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2008 at 9:13pm:

The old 08456 009 009 number will not be switched off for up to five years. This means that Surrey County Council will not be incurring any additional expense by introducing the new number. Most material will be updated with the new number only when it would normally be refreshed or replaced.

Does this also include the costs of running the number? While I know they are referring to letterheads and leaflets, it does imply that the ongoing costs are the same. However, this does show the advantage of allocating an 03xx range to run in parallel with the equivalent 08xx numbers, and why there's little excuse for others not to switch.

jrawle wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2008 at 9:42pm:

Does this also include the costs of running the number? While I know they are referring to letterheads and leaflets, it does imply that the ongoing costs are the same. However, this does show the advantage of allocating an 03xx range to run in parallel with the equivalent 08xx numbers, and why there's little excuse for others not to switch.

Simon Pollock (aka Simon_From_Surrey), Surrey County Council's Head of Customer Services, is now giving active consideration to my suggestion that all calls to the 0845 number should be met with an instruction to redial on the 0345 number and/or at least be met by an introductory message before the main call centre IVR menu system telling callers that they can in future call the 0345 number as this will be cheaper if they have inclusive call packages or are calling from a Payphone etc, etc.  This ought to make the changeover process much faster given the various old leaflets and signs on vans etc that may not be updated for quite some time.

He has already changed the website to make the alternative +44 20 number more visible because of problems with people like www.18185.co.uk still not connecting calls from their customers to 03 numbers and/or probably more widespread problems calling the 03 number from overseas at the present time.  He has also changed the format of the alternate 020 number to show as +44 20 8 and not the incorrect +44 208 that was previously shown.  He justifies showing it as an International number on the basis that in the main only offshore callers should need to use it and also that the sound quality on the +44 208 number is inferior due to what he calls "tromboning" on whatever voip system that number then connects to the main 03 call centre through.

Surrey County Council has also introduced a range of direct dial 03 prefixed numbers to various individual departments and services alongside the new main 03 number as they seem to have belatedly accepted that having only a single 0845 phone number for all calls and then hideous levels of IVR menus to get to the service you actually wanted to reach in the first place is not what most members of the public actually want.

NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 4^th, 2008 at 2:54pm:

Simon Pollock (aka Simon_From_Surrey), Surrey County Council's Head of Customer Services, is now giving active consideration to my suggestion ...

Good points; well done both.

I just thought I would mention that following my emails 10 days or so ago to Ian Livingston, CEO of BT and Igor Tracchea, Commercial Manager at Finarea, that 18185 are now connecting calls to 03 prefixed phone numbers normally and are charging them at their standard 5p flat rate also charged for all calls (no matter how long in duration) to numbers starting 01 and 02
[smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]

More detailed information on this can be read in my post in the thread discussing call charges to 03 numbers at:-

www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1198929632/78

I have recently been in touch with Simon_From_Surrey to see if he could provide any further thoughts or assistance on how best to further progress lobbying of Surrey Police, who still seem to be firmly wedded to their single 0845 contact centre number (whilst they did disclose the 01483 number already known to this website in response to an FOI from the owner of www.crimestoppers.org.uk they still absolutely refuse to list it at all on their own website or in any of their publications - not even as a number for callers to use from overseas).

Anyway in chatting with Simon he did provide me with some very interesting figures that show that Surrey CC's new 0300 and 0345 numbers have been an overwhelming runaway success with the public and that from a standing start on 3rd November last year that the 03 numbers are now used by the public for 86% of the around 10,000 calls per week to Surrey County Council's various different contact lines (including their main Contact Centre number of 0345 6009009) at the latest available date.

The level of takeup seems to have exceeded even Simon's most optimistic expectations, given that existing stationery was not immediately changed and that things such as BT phonebooks, some council vans and quite a few information leaflets still show the old 0845 number.  Given the very rapid speed of change from 0845 to 03 number use Simon did seem to feel that most of Surrey CC's callers quite clearly did understand the benefits of calling an 0345/0300 number rather than 0845.  He also says he has been approached by quite a few other County Councils still using 0845 numbers about the experience of changing over, including I suppose how they went about renegotiating the financial details with their current telecoms supplier.

The level of PR spend above what is normally spent on leaflets etc by the council to publicise the new 03 numbers has apparently been zero (changing numbers on the website and so on were a one off and done by regular council IT staff), the total extra telecoms running cost per annum compared to the 0845 number is apparently £11,000 or more meaningfully just one pence per resident per annum and the reduction in complaints received about the County Council's choice of phone numbers has apparently been 100%. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

In the first main week of use (1st December 2008) the 03 numbers went from a standing start to accounting for 45% of all calls, and by 11th May 2009 this had risen to 72% and by 14th September 2009 the 03 numbers were being used for 86% of calls.  And all of this is even without all council leaflets and phone books and other printed professional directories yet being updated with the new phone number.  [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=laugh.gif] [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 26^th, 2009 at 6:00pm:

Anyway in chatting with Simon he did provide me with some very interesting figures that show that Surrey CC's new 0300 and 0345 numbers have been an overwhelming runaway success with the public and that from a standing start on 3rd November last year that the 03 numbers are now used by the public for 86% of the around 10,000 calls per week to Surrey County Council's various different contact lines (including their main Contact Centre number of 0345 6009009) at the latest available date.

Having started this thread a year and a half ago in a critical mode, I am delighted to hear of Surrey County Council's success.

Dave wrote on Sep 26^th, 2009 at 6:31pm:

Having started this thread a year and a half ago in a critical mode, I am delighted to hear of Surrey County Council's success.

Well I have to give credit where credit is due and Simon seems to have done an outstanding job in finally delivering efficiently and successfully on the hollow promises of his various predecessors in this role at Surrey County Council.

Hi everyone,

It's one year to the day since Surrey County Council moved from 0845 to 0345 and 0300 and I thought you would like an update.

Last week the percentage of calls going through the 03 numbers was 91%

We have not spent any additional money on promoting the new numbers, we have merely changed the website, directory enquiries and as items have "come up for reprint" we've updated the phone number.

The new numbers can be found all over the county, from road signs to van liveries, from leaflets to billboard posters.

We have posted the story on our website today

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Ringing+the+changes+one+year+on?opendocument

and, that's pretty much that, a big success at virtually no cost

Many thanks for all who have posted on this forum for your support and suggestions

Have a great Christmas

Simon Pollock
Head of Customer Services
Surrey County Council

Happy Christmas to you as well Simon. It was satisfying to know that when an issue was raised it was acted upon.

Shame other organisations don't follow your lead. You make an excellent reference as an organisation that when you get it wrong and it is pointed out, you puts it right and don't try and make excuses.

Well done.

Well done to Simon and his colleagues.  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

Story from Surrey Comet, published today:

Surrey County Council contact centre scoops customer service award

http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/4781234.Surrey_County_Council_contact_centre_scoops_customer_service_award/

Source: getsurrey (Surrey Advertiser)

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2062281_councils_0300_phone_numbers_a_beacon_for_others

<<

Council’s 0300 phone numbers 'a beacon for others'

By Richard Pain
December 09, 2009

ONE year after their introduction, Surrey County Council has hailed its low-cost contact telephone numbers as a success.

But plans for Surrey Police to introduce a similar scheme appear to have been put on the back burner.

[…]

Dave Lindsay, a spokesman for the Saynoto0870 campaign, has previously written to the force urging it to change its number.

He said: “The Saynoto0870.com campaign is delighted at Surrey County Council’s achievement and holds it up as a beacon for many others to follow.

“We would like to take this opportunity to renew our call to Surrey Police to abandon its 0845 number, which penalises mobile callers with charges of 40p per minute.”

>>


To read the article in full, follow the link.

Source: Call Centre Helper

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/surrey-one-of-first-councils-to-get-excellence-rating-9175.htm


Quote:

Surrey one of first councils to get excellence rating Surrey County Council has become one of the first local authorities nationally to be officially recognised as a centre of excellence by the professional body for customer service. …

Dave wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2010 at 2:44pm:

Surrey County Council has become one of the first local authorities nationally to be officially recognised as a centre of excellence by the professional body for customer service.

Can we assume that the only basis for this award of excellence is their decision to change to using a customer friendly 03 contact phone number and the fact that the employees are based in the United Kingdom (but sadly not in the County of Surrey) and not in India?

This is because as one who lives in Surrey and who has had to call this contact centre a number of times I have always found it to be particularly dumbed down useless and incompetent, especially when it comes to satisfactorily recording faults in the local highways network.

Source: Call Centre Helper

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/councils-contact-centre-in-running-for-european-award-12076.htm


Quote:

Council’s contact centre in running for European award Surrey County Council’s contact centre is in the running to be named among the best in Europe for the second time in three years. It has been short-listed in the best centre in Europe for the customer service category of the European Call Centre Awards. Surrey is the only council to be short-listed in 13 awards categories that recognise excellence in the industry. Surrey was short-listed alongside the likes of energy company Scottish Power, insurance firm LV=, telecommunications business Telefonica O2 UK and supermarket chain Tesco. […] 4 Aug 2010