Operational Efficiency

In the UK, there are millions of digitally challenged individuals who lack basic digital skills. As a result, many customers rely on Call Centres for assistance with basic tasks. This episode discusses how organisations can reduce Call Centre pressures and improve operational efficiency whilst making a positive social impact in the face of the digital divide.

Jonathan (JP) Prew is the Managing Director at We Are Group. Having spent a good portion of his career in corporate roles, he moved into the field of Social Impact, which combined his business background with a desire to make a positive social difference. He has extensive public and private sector experience, with expertise in outsourcing, change management, and technology. He has generated over £1bn in new business and managed a staff base of 5000+ with a P&L responsibility of over £400m. JP has a full life cycle of experience from contract launch to delivery of operational improvements, renegotiation, and transition.

He has worked in various industries, including the Private sector, Local Authority, Education, Housing Associations, Central Government, Social Care, Voluntary Sector, and Emergency Services. His achievements have been recognised with two global awards for inspirational leadership. 

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Transcript

0:05

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Social Footprint. Today, we're joined with Jonathan Prew, also known as JP, Managing Director of We Are Group, where we'll be discussing operational efficiency in the face of the digital divide. So JP, I hope you don't mind me saying that you've been working with tech and the internet ever since it was invented. Would you still envision that we're talking about the digital divide 30 years later? I find it amazing that we are, you know, but equally, if I look at, you know, very kindly pointed out my age, thank you very much for that Jasneet. I guess, you know, when I when I first started working in tech. Did I think 30 odd years later people would be making money out of dancing cat videos and spaniels with confused faces planning holidays? No, I didn't. And equally, I did see quite a lot of potential. And I did some early adoption. The one thing I called completely wrong, I just thought it be a natural occurrence that people would adopt technology. I never thought for one minute people would be leaving school with low digital skills. If I just said any barrier to technology, it would have been the physical device. You know, can I afford a device? Because at the time, you know, relatively expensive. I remember my first mobile phone probably cost me more than my mobile phone does now. What I would never have envisioned, and I think that's why most systems were built around on hundred percent adoption, was that people wouldn't go online because from a consumer point of view you think, surely everybody would want to do something when it suits them and more quickly. And therefore, when we started building systems, we probably didn't think enough about people that wouldn't go online but wanted to go online. And we spent a lot of time talking about people that still wanted to use walk in services because at that time it was walk in or go online. We never really thought about the people that would like to go online but were hesitant to do so. So yeah, dancing cats, confused spaniels. Never thought of that one. Did have an idea to set up an internet company to sell houses. People I spoke to said that's not really going to work, is it? Yeah. Look at Rightmove. I could have been a millionaire, but I didn’t do that one. Oh, interesting. So obviously talking then about the power of digital and its relation to kind of operational efficiency. Would you ever thought of it being related to social impact? I mean, obviously, having worked in kind of the public and private sectors where it's quite disparate with one being more focused on social impact and perhaps one bit more corporate kind of operational efficiency. Did you ever see them as exclusive or did you always envision this kind of mutuality between them? I think if you talk in the past tense, no. I think if I go back a number of years, you know, things like the Social Value Act, you were not mentioned, you know, things like B corps were mentioned and therefore it was a more basic can we do things more efficiently? I think hopefully, you know, the world has moved on since then. And I think what I find fascinating now is if... I’ve worked with people and we work with people that know around operational efficiency far more than I do. Okay. But when I look at what I looked for when I was in my corporate world, you know, first thing is inevitably cost. You know, let’s not beat about the bush. You know, companies are contracted by clients to operate things in a more efficient way. And without doubt, technology can help do that. Very strong believer, though, and, you know, I looked at this in my former life, is that can go hand in hand with customer satisfaction, you know. So I would never, ever say that cost and doing things for less was the sole driver. Because actually, if you can do things in a more efficient way, then guess what your customer base is going to give you a best, you know, customer satisfaction rating, in my view. So if I go back to my former corporate life, what I always looked for was, are our costs coming down? Tick! But also how is our customer satisfaction rating? Because if we can do things, you know, at a cheaper point from a client perspective, great for them. From a consumer point of view, can you do things more efficiently, great for them. That in turn helps the sales in terms of new opportunities, you know, extension, I think it's only in the latter years when I've started look at the social impact element as well. You know, at We Are Group, we talk about no one being left behind in the UK. We are leaving significant amount of people behind, you know, whether that be school leavers, old people. And I think there's a generalisation that it’s an age thing and it's not you know, statistics show that young people are leaving school with limited digital skills. The irony that they're spending hundreds and hundreds of pounds to buy a phone to watch cat videos isn't lost on me. You know, the fact that people in other countries overseas are using technology, you know, to order fast food, etcetera, etcetera, but not using it for basic transaction. So I think, you know, in terms of the work we're doing with We Are Group, I'm just a firm believer if we can help those people with low digital take up, you know, to be more independent, you know, that ticks so many boxes. If you think about a contact centre reducing the number of repetitive calls because we've given people the skills to get online. You know, some of my age, being able to then move online, that might be 20, 30, hopefully 40 years of calls that are not going to happen because I've got the confidence to move online. So yeah, I think, a long way of saying in my early days, yes, I saw the internet would drive efficiency, I saw it could improve customer satisfaction. Now I think we've got a perfect opportunity to say actually to all organisations, you can also use technology to improve your social impact. It's really important. Okay, no that's really interesting. There’s definitely a lot to unpack there. So obviously you mentioned you never envisioned a world where kind of school goers would leave school without having the digital skills. So how does that itself impact businesses achieving operational efficiency? So how come they maybe achieve that in line with creating kind of social impact? I think it's the statistics are showing and I find it amazing I'm not going to comment on the education system, but when, you know, people are leaving school and, you know, records show that they feel under-equipped to use technology. You know, to fulfill a role. At the same time, the UK talks about a skills gap. To me the answer's fairly straightforward let's get people more equipped with tech skills. But again, if I go back to the misconceptions, I think a lot of people, including myself made, in the very early days that people would naturally go online and they're not, you know? And so we creating a new generation who are digitally divided. Without doubt, some of it is due to economic situations. Not everybody can afford technology. I would never say they could, not everybody could afford the you know, the bandwidth, etcetera, etcetera. But if you look where we are currently, as a business, one of the biggest barriers is now fear of fraud and fear of scams. So maybe five years ago, ten years ago, it was let's get people online, let's show them how to send emails. And the resistance was, I don't have the technology or maybe I don't have the confidence. Now it’s I'm scared of going online because I'm scared of fraud. I'm afraid of being scammed. That's why, as an example, one of our contracts with Lloyds, we've altered that to give people the confidence to spot scam emails. You know, I always say and again, I'm showing my age now people are worried about handing over a sort code or an account number. You know, back in the day when you handed cheques out, you did that every day of the week and you didn't think anything about it. So I think now it's, you know, people who are used to that handing a cheque over and thinking that's perfectly normal, actually helping them understand that actually a lot of what you're doing is no different. But they need to have the confidence to know that with basic skills, basic awareness, they're not going to be subject to scams or fraud. You know, giving them that basic, you know, awareness, get them over that barrier and then get them into using the technology. Okay. Yeah, that's really interesting. So, say businesses or organisations do harness kind of digitally powered solutions to improve their kind of operational efficiency. How might they fully engage their customer base then, given that I think approximately 30 million people can't engage with digital devices or they don't have the digital capability. How might businesses form a solution to that? I think the easiest thing in the world is do what businesses are good at. Okay. So if we look at, you know, let's look at CRM and let's look at upsell, okay? We all use internet sites that say people who have also bought this, also bought something else. Just common, common practice. And that we identify individuals that may have another need. Why are not more companies identifying people based on the persona, based on the map, and based on all the wonderful things that people in industry can do now. Saying these are the people that are lacking digital skills. Every single person that is lacking digital skills and that is constantly calling a helpline is adding to the cost burden of a contact centre. Harsh economic reality of life. If you thought you could upsell 10% of your revenue, you’d do in a heartbeat. So why are people not looking at this 10% cost here that we know is draining this business and we're doing nothing about it. And I think it's because people instinctively think, oh, let's alter the website, let's make it a bit more snazzy. You know, let's alter the font. Let's have a rebrand, you know. Sorry to all the brand people out there. Yeah. But it is not going to address the 10% of people that are reluctant to get online. Identify those people who are online, who are struggling to get online and do something about it. It is quite a specialist skill, you know, and that's why we work with all the large companies who say, can you do this with us? But if you imagine someone of an age that for the next 15, 20 years is going to be constantly phoning your helpline. That might be, if I look at, you know, I come from a local government background, you know, that might be people who are constantly calling about housing repairs. You know, they don't want to be hanging on the phone for 20 minutes. They don't want to do that. But they may not have the confidence to come offline. But I think what happens, generally speaking, is people are obsessive in some good respects about call waiting times, you know, rather than thinking we have got a hard core of people here that we could take offline. And I say, I relate it to a retail scenario. If you thought you could upsell and create 10% of revenue, you would do so. If you could take out 10% of cost, that's directly onto the bottom line. You're not even looking at the margin implications of revenue. You're taking it straight to the bottom line. But you've got a loyal customer then, you've got someone that you've helped, you've given them additional skills. They're likely to stay with you longer. You know, your customer satisfaction is going to improve and you know what? You're kind of doing something for social impact as well, you know? And so increase the bottom line, increase the top line and do something for social impact. You know, I think it's a fairly decent sale. If I was in big business. Yeah, definitely. I think it's a very kind of convincing prospect that. I think and moving on then to perhaps, maybe kind of how businesses can educate then that their customer base. As you said, digital skills is where the problem may lie. And that's through no fault of a consumers or customers. So what businesses... What can businesses do then to really kind of alleviate that challenge within their customer base? I think, again if I stick to a retail theme really, which is just build awareness. People don't want to lose customers and therefore, you know, they will they will do everything they can to keep them. But just as I go back to if you are a certain sort of person, you may like another product. Okay, not everybody will go on to go online. Yeah, I am not saying that there is a hard core of people and you can shift everyone online but with a reasonable amount of, you know, persona identification, you will be able to identify the people who, you know, just through a few simple questions, you know, do you text? Yes. Okay. You've therefore got a device that can text. Okay. So you've got the basic means. If you then can start to talk to people. I just look at my own family. If you think you are not able to communicate with your grandchildren because they're away at university, that's a fairly compelling thing to be able to say to someone, you know, would you like to be able to face time your granddaughter, or would you like to be able to send an email, you know, to your grandson who’s overseas and give people a reason for that? And then, if people are willing, then you start to open the door to have that engagement. It's a bit like I liken it often to teaching children to swim. Some people disagree, but you'd never throw a child into the deep end and say, Good luck, would you? But you know, if you're there to help them along the way and I think again, we fall into the common trap of thinking people will self learn on the internet. They won't. And you know, by identifying people that, you know, want face to face support you may be willing to do online support if able. But if they put their hand up and said, Yeah, I would like to do this, I just need a little bit help. You’re halfway there. So I think again, you know, some early identification of the people and say, yes, you know, we believe you would benefit from some training, some support. And that may be just as simple as saying, this is how you put your banking app on the phone. You know, this is how you put a shopping thing on your phone. Then when the apps on you show them how to use it and then by and large away you go. But it's giving them that helping hand that if you are struggling with digital, you're not going to instantly say, I'm struggling. Therefore I will go and download an app, you know? Yeah, no, no. That's some really good points there. Thank you, JP. So you used a really nice analogy actually of the swimming pool and how, you know, you're taught you're guided. So you know, one day you can swim off independently. So what mechanisms can businesses perhaps use in terms of kind of really educating their customer base and teaching them how to become independent, using digital kind of powered solutions? I think I would say this wouldn’t I, given you know, the work we do. I think do not underestimate how specialist that is. Because people teach because they are good at explaining things. Okay. Often technology led people are the worst people in the world, in my experience, to teach people. Because, you know, they instantly get it. If I look at, I like to think I'm reasonably digitally confident, but if my you know, son wants to explain something, he probably loses me within 2 minutes. Okay. So I think, you know, what we do is we work with, you know, big businesses who, you know, we can help them identify the people that would benefit from those skills. And, you know, using normal standard triaging mechanisms. You know, would you like some specialist support? And then we tend through digital training, it’s you know fairly straightforward but that could meet various aspects. It may mean first of all, we need to explain from the very basics what people are willing to learn. It may be people have got the basics skills, but are scared of fraud and therefore we'd focus on that element. Equally, if I look at some of the other work we do, it may be we just do not have the basic physical device, you know, which is why we, you know, working with some of our schemes, we give out free equipment, free bandwidth, and that may be for digital training purposes, but it also may be to help people into employment. So I think, you know, I'd start with, find the root cause of why someone has not adopted technology and find out what are they trying to achieve? And it will be different things for different people. But, you know, once they've made that step, once they've said, yes, they want some support and they would benefit from some support, then, you know, it's quite a relatively easy task because you've got someone with an open door. I would never, ever try and force someone to move on to digital if they were completely anti it. Because it's like, it's like trying to learn a foreign language, isn't it? You know, if you want to learn a foreign language, you're quite a willing participant. If you don't, you're not really going to do it. Yeah, that's really interesting. I think for me, kind of the essence of digital skills training is it really owes to a kind of a like a long term solution as well rather than short term. I mean, it's not just the immediate gratification of, okay, we've gotten that core that are offline because we've told them how to do this. It's that real kind of prolonged digital training, giving them that kind of experience where you are establishing their root cause, whether it's an economic factor, whether it's just confidence factor, and you’re really playing into that kind of long term solution. Would you agree? I think, regrettably, I do have to agree that it is a long term solution. If I go back to your original question, would I’ve thought in the 30 plus years I'd be sat here talking about the lack of digital adoption amongst school leavers, not in a million years. But I think we have to take it just one step at a time. Accept there is a huge problem and unless something changes, it's not going to change. You know, it's all due respect to the education system. You know, the stats around, you know, children, young adults leaving school, are truly shocking, truly shocking. It is a long adoption and a long process. And I'm sure in a few years time when you are Head of Marketing at some international company over in Europe fulfilling all your dreams, you'll still be talking about the fact we need to get more digital adoption. So it's not going to go away. It's not going to go away. But just statistically, if we look at, I think about 6000 contacts centres I think in the UK. You start to look at the numbers, you know, average probably a 125 seats in a contact centre. You start to think about if we could shift 10% of that traffic online. You know, you do the math, 125 say agents. If you can move, you know, ten agents, save that money. And I stress that is not a redundancy statement. But just imagine you have freed up 10% capacity that when you win your next contract, you do not need to go out and hire more people, you know? So, again, I really think your business is driven by, you know, profit. You know, of course, business should have a social aspect, but, you know, business ultimately has to be driven by the economics of running a business. I just find it so frustrating, to be honest. It didn't used to bother me. It does now, but so frustrating that there's an opportunity out there to address, you know, 10% of your cost base. AI is changing the way the world operates. You know, any business strategy, any technology strategy that's not considering AI is probably going to be flawed. Everybody knows AI we need to adopt AI. Just think if AI could give us a 5% advantage, just think if it could give us a 10% advantage. But actually you've then got this thing called social impact that, I believe can give you the same advantage. And yet people don't talk about it. But I guess, you know, if I was a shareholder. Or if I'd just put myself in a consumer point of view. I kind of want to back the company that wanted to drive efficiency, wanted to give me a better customer experience, but actually was contributing towards the social impact of where I live as well. And I think it's just, it's just another way of looking at things. Now, not everybody will agree with me. Equally, not everybody will agree that AI is the future. But if you look at opportunities to improve your if you want to call it your CSR rating, if you want to call it your SROI rating, which is what we commonly use, or if you want to just look at your value to society. I think you could also drive a bottom line advantage kind of why wouldn't you? So JP, you mentioned, SROI there, for the benefit of myself as well as listeners, can you expand on what SROI is? Yeah, sure. I mean it's quite often not understood. It’s a calculation basically. And if I look at some of the work we do, you know how many jobs have we created, how many people have we helped? Some people would start just on the basis that is your role and that is your social impact you have made. Equally, people talk about, you know, corporate social responsibility. SROI is just a further calculation, but is a little bit more complex. Aimed to look at the environmental impact, to look at the economic impact. And then it comes up with a calculation based on every pound spent, what have you achieved? And obviously there's a multiplier effect. So it's a standard methodology. It’s a very powerful methodology, but gives a good, strong indication to us as a business of how well we are doing. So again, if I go back to some of the questions you asked earlier around things like operational efficiency, I want to look at how we are performing for our customer. I want to look at our contact centre stats. Of course I do, because, you know, we're running a business. Equally, I want to look at our community partners, the people in the community voluntary sector that we work with and support. I want to look how they're doing because they're forming part of our contractual relationship with the client. But ultimately as a social impact business is, you know, a business that is invested by social impact investors. We want to see the outcome of what we're trying to achieve and we want to see the impact and therefore we use the SROI calculation. Thanks, JP. Thanks for clarifying SROI for us. I think for me, it's really refreshing to hear that businesses are now treating return of investment as well as social return on investment on an equal footing. And they are really being achieved in conjunction and it's exciting to see where things will go with that. But I think that's a really nice place to wrap up today's episode. Thank you so much for joining us today on Social Footprint to discuss operational efficiency and the social impact. It's been great to have you on. It's been an interesting experience. Thank you.