NHS Business Services Authority

While most companies have a set customer base about which much information is known, NHSBSA's customer base is the whole of the UK population. Therefore, it must consistently forecast calls from potentially over 60 million people, making it difficult to allocate resources.

As EHIC cards need to be reviewed every five years, NHSBSA's contact centre was receiving a consistently high volume of calls from an average of 300,000 customers needing new cards per month. Within the peak months, there were as many as 2 million calls received. This presented a considerable challenge to answer all inbound calls by using call centre agents alone.

The call centre was previously unable to deal effectively with such unpredictable spikes in call volume, particularly due to most calls handled were the more routine and straightforward application requests, so agents had less time to respond to more complex and detailed customer calls.

After consultation with NHSBSA, Nasstar determined that any successful solution would need the ability to handle a high volume of calls, extend the hours for customer service beyond the contact centre’s opening hours, deliver significant cost savings, and facilitate a more agile and effective customer experience.