Case Studies Details

The Client
TfL is a functional body of the Greater London Authority responsible for implementing the Mayor of London’s Transport Strategy and managing transport services across the Capital.

The Requirement for TfL
In 2004, TfL ran a public consultation seeking Londoners, residents and businesses views on a proposed Western Extension to the original central London Congestion Charging zone. As part of this consultation TfL distributed information leaflets to London households, residents living within the charging zone and the proposed Western extension area as well as businesses using a third party supplier. It was important for Transport for London to know if residents and businesses had received their leaflets, whether they were intending to respond to the consultation via the questionnaire contained within the leaflet and if they had not received a leaflet for an information leaflet to be sent out . TfL required a partner who could provide objective, intelligent and specialist services on their behalf. They also required a range of contact marketing services to reflect the nature of their organisation and the diversity of their audience i.e. London residents and businesses and at the same time provide an unbiased and objective service particularly within the contact centre to answer questions about the consultation proposals.

The Solution
granbytalk. GranbyTalk were required to handle both inbound and outbound calls. Members of the public or owners of businesses making inbound calls required answers to queries about the Western Extension. Outbound calls would be made to relevant parties to discover whether or not they had received their TfL information leaflet in the post. Throughout the project, GranbyTalk planned to analyse the data received, flag up any significant results and provide suggestions to TfL. The second phase of the project was the implementation in February 2007 once the western extension zone had been brought into play. Outbound calls would be directed to residents of the western area to investigate whether or not they had received an information pack explaining the Residents discount, together with an application form and to assess whether or not they were going to register for the discount and in what timeframe.. All the recorded results would be evaluated and supplied to TfL.

The Results
GranbyTalk successfully supported Transport for London by providing a highly skilled, experienced and trained team of experts providing specialist inbound/outbound call handling 7 days a week, 10 hours per day. The GranbyTalk team demonstrated a comprehensive knowledge of the project and of the specific areas involved. This was essential for the TfL project due to the broad range of potential FAQ’s. GranbyTalk provided reports on a daily basis which enabled TfL to monitor delivery performance, call statistics, additional literature orders and public opinion. GranbyTalk utilised the data intelligently to support TfL. The development of reporting tools provided instant analysis on detailed levels by geographic region and type of query.

TfL Comment:
Feedback from call handlers about the typical questions being asked by residents helped TfL fine tune elements of the communications campaign to prepare Londoners and residents for when the zone extended to the west.