Sodexho Pass
The team at ROCKETUK.COM has exceeded all of our expectations, they are reliable, efficient and operate as a seamless extension of our customer care department. I would not hesitate to outsource further projects to them in the future
Operations Manager at Sodexho Pass, Alex Stenning
In the 2005 budget the UK government announced changes to tax and National Insurance (NI) rules in an attempt to make it easier for people with children to enter or remain in employment. This new initiative enables people to claim part of their salary (up to £243 per calendar month) in tax-and-NI exempt childcare vouchers. Voted Childcare Voucher Provider Of The Year 2006 by Employee Rewards & Benefits magazine, Sodexho Pass is part of the Sodexho Alliance. It manages a childcare voucher scheme for businesses large and small.
The Childcare Voucher Scheme
Once a month every employer enrolled in the scheme sends Sodexho Pass a list of employees that wish to claim part of their salary in vouchers. These are then sent out on their pay date. Operations Manager at Sodexho Pass, Alex Stenning explains how the process works: “Some people use our online service that credits their account, enabling them to make a direct payment to their carer. Others prefer to receive paper vouchers in the post and then pass them on to the carer who must then contact us to redeem the vouchers.”
It is important for the carer to be able to redeem these vouchers as quickly as possible and they are able to do this by email, post, or most commonly via our free phone 0800 telephone number printed on each voucher. Stenning adds, “Since the government initiative was launched we have experienced an increase of 600% in take-up of the scheme. And further benefits announced in the 2006 budget resulted in childcare vouchers becoming even more popular”.
As the popularity of the Sodexho Pass scheme continued to grow, its customer care team in Camberley was beginning to feel the strain. “Keeping up with the number of voucher redemptions from carers was difficult to manage and we needed to investigate alternative options”, comments Stenning.
Helping Carers Redeem Vouchers
The first consideration was a voice recognition (IVR) system, however this was quickly discounted as it would remove the level of personal service for which the company had become renowned. “We then looked at call centre bureaus and several of our own employees had experience of working with ROCKETUK.COM”, adds Stenning. “They had a strong reputation in the call centre market and we were impressed by their infrastructure and professionalism. From our first meeting it was clear that they would be able to meet our growing requirements”.
The outsourced telephony service provider, ROCKETUK.COM operates a call centre bureau service, Rocket Ansa-Call, from its head office in Aldershot. Within six weeks of the initial meeting a secure link to Sodexho Pass’s internal systems had been set up via a remote server, giving the Rocket Ansa-Call team access to the information they required. Both companies also worked together to create an intelligent business process map, using Synthesys software from Noetica that guides each agent through the correct redemption process every time. “We handed over control of the dedicated voucher redemption line in mid-May 2006 ready for the peak in call volumes we experience at the beginning of each month”, Stenning adds.
The voucher redemption line is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Stenning explains why this level of service is needed, “This is very important for carers who need to use the service outside of their own working hours”.
Today Rocket Ansa-Call manages in excess of 4000 calls from carers each month, accounting for 90% of all telephone voucher redemptions. “Outsourcing voucher redemption has eased the pressure on the customer care team considerably enabling them to improve other areas of service”, Stenning concludes. “The team at ROCKETUK.COM has exceeded all of our expectations, they are reliable, efficient and operate as a seamless extension of our customer care department. I would not hesitate to outsource further projects to them in the future”.
