Ministry of Justice
CONTACT allows the Ministry of Justice to contact clients about court fines and payments via text.
Datasquirt has delivered an SMS service to the Ministry of
Justice that allows it to contact clients about court fines and
payments via text messages on their mobile phone. The novel debt
collection service is providing a more user-friendly face to the
department as 'offenders' respond positively to the less intrusive,
more personal communication channel offered by text messaging.
Datasquirt was approached by the Collections Unit of the
Ministry of Justice to develop an SMS solution that could be used
by its contact centre to improve fine and debt collection. The
Ministry of Justice operates two contact centres that are
responsible for collecting millions in court fines each year.
With more than 80 percent of New Zealanders owning a mobile
phone and more than 90 percent of the Ministry's core customer
segment identified as regular users of text messaging, this channel
was recognised as a great tool for communication between the
Collections Unit and its customers.
As part of its remit to make justice more accessible, the
Collections Unit wanted to make it easier for customers to contact
the Ministry of Justice. It also wanted to provide another less
formal, non-confrontational communication channel that would remind
the Ministry's customers of their fine repayments, instalments and
due dates. It was hoped that adding SMS to the communication
methods would also increase the Ministry's fine collection rate and
reduce the 'breach' rate (fine defaulters).
Datasquirt customised its SMS call centre solution CONTACT™ for
a pilot. A key requirement of the trial was to ensure the solution
worked with the existing processes at the contact centres. It was
also very important that the solution was simple to implement and
operate.
Harnessing existing systems
Operating similarly to a traditional call centre ACD system,
CONTACT processes and queues inbound SMS contacts and manages
outbound SMS contacts using a call centre's existing business
processes. The solution is ASP-based and is accessed via a secure
internet connection, which meant the Ministry did not need to
install any new software or hardware within its contact centre,
considerably reducing set-up cost and implementation time.
The initial pilot results were extremely successful, with 66
percent of customers contacted in the pilot phase preferring to be
contacted and communicate via text messaging instead of the
traditional mail and telephone channels.
Friendly face of the law
The accessibility and non-confrontational nature of SMS also
enabled the Ministry to obtain more information about its clients,
as those contacted by a text message were more willing to volunteer
additional data.
The results show that those agents in the centre using SMS
systems collected over 15 per cent more than the average contact
centre agent and achieved higher cash collection rates every month.
The amount of cash they collected also improved by over 10% percent
from their previous months' results.
Those agents in the centre using SMS systems collected over
15 per cent more than the average contact centre agent and achieved
higher cash collection rates every month.
The Ministry has also noted that there are
further opportunities for the use of CONTACT - such as reminder
messages about fine payments, notifications to victims of crimes,
confirmations that fines have been paid, reminders about hearing
times at the District Court and so forth.
Key solution features/benefits
- Inbound SMS contacts are delivered directly via the CONTACT
solution for review and processing. Depending on the agent's
preference, the inbound contacts are also available to be sent to
the relevant agent's email inbox with a hypertext link to the
solution.
- A reminder message to pay can be scheduled to be sent as a text
message, email or fax in the future to reduce agent handling
time.
- Detailed real time reports outlining contacts and traffic
analysis (for workforce management forecasting and rostering) were
made available. In addition, the CONTACT solution records a full
history of contacts with each customer.
About the Ministry of Justice
The Ministry works closely with other agencies in the justice
sector such as New Zealand Police, the Department of Corrections
and the Ministry of Social Development, to advance the sector's
common goal of a safe and just society for New Zealand. The
Ministry's approximately 2900 staff work in 103 different locations
around New Zealand, delivering a wide variety of services from
court services and fines collection to policy advice, negotiation
of Treaty of Waitangi claims and running the parliamentary
elections. For more information please visit http://www.justice.govt.nz/
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