Lean Service Forum at Calderbrook Water

Forty members from 31 organisations spent the day at Calderbrook Water's contact and field-scheduling centre in Leeds.

The morning ran as two parallel sessions. One group sat with call handlers as they booked appointments for leak investigations and meter repairs. The other spent time with the field-scheduling team, who plan the work of around 300 engineers. The groups then swapped.

The point of the exercise became clear at the case session. Until last year the two teams worked in separate buildings and reported to different directors. Call handlers booked appointments in slots the schedulers had not planned for, and schedulers moved jobs without telling the customer. Missed or rearranged appointments were one of the two main causes of complaints.

Calderbrook moved the teams onto one floor, gave them a shared morning review and agreed a single measure: appointments kept as promised. Over nine months missed appointments fell by a third, and calls from customers asking where their engineer was fell by 40%.

Several members admitted to the same split in their own organisations, between contact centres and branch, claims or field teams. The peer clinic that followed focused on how to make the case for joint planning when the two teams answer to different parts of the business.

Thank you to Calderbrook Water and its teams for opening their doors.