Evidencing the difference that your helpline makes can be difficult. However, contact logging systems can be used

successfully by helplines to gather information to provide a better picture of how their service is operating. For

example, this can help inform decisions about planning staff or volunteer shifts and reduce the number of

abandoned contacts.

Possessing effective data about how well your helpline is performing can demonstrate to funders and supporters

that you are delivering value for money. Better data can also help to identify gaps in current service provision, and

help to make a stronger case for investment.

What is Contact Logging?

Whenever you receive a contact to your service, it is good practice to capture some information about the enquiry

and then periodically analyse the data to look for patterns in your service usage. The data will improve your

understanding of the nature of contacts received, the demographics of service users and numerous other aspects

important to your organisation. Even when it is difficult or inappropriate to gather specific details about the service

user it is still important to consider what information can still be gathered e.g. nature of the enquiry, gender etc.

A contact logging system needs to allow you to record facts about an enquiry, preferably during the contact or

immediately afterwards. Advisors usually have a means of logging information which could be a sheet of paper,

spreadsheet or a database capturing details against a unique identifier. With a manual system this may then be

separately inputted into a spreadsheet or database. Depending on the system used, accessing and interpreting the

data could be highly labour intensive (e.g. if paper based) or as simple as running a query or report (via a database

or Client Relationship Management system - CRM).

The goal should be to capture as much information as possible about the use of your service without expending a

disproportionate amount of time and resources in doing so. Ultimately you will probably want to extract the data

periodically, to produce reports and/or charts. Statistical recording and reporting is really important to helplines for

a wide variety of purposes such as funding bids, business planning, service delivery and research.

Every helpline is different and has its own specialism or expertise. Some services are highly focussed on a

specific subject and others are more generalist across a wide range of subjects; many helplines are targeted

towards specific age groups, geographical areas, disability or disadvantaged group. Many helplines run

confidential services and will want data to be anonymised. Balanced against these considerations is the size of

the organisation and resources it has available including the technical expertise and capacity they have available

to record and analyse the information gathered.

How can contact logging help to reduce costs?

The data that your helpline gains from a contact logging system can help you to better understand when

the demands on your service are highest, so that you can change how you deploy staff or volunteers to

cover busy periods.

Ensuring that callers receive a consistently good service can be challenging. Contact logging software

can provide useful data on average call lengths and types of calls. This may then be helpful to support

supervision as well as team learning and development.

Why would logging contact information help?

There are many reasons why helplines might want to log contacts received such as:

Service Delivery. Understanding peaks and troughs when calls are received helps resource planning. By

analysing the trends in data you can establish an effective staffing timetable, in order to best cater for demand.

Abandonment rates and waiting times are other key aspects which could highlight the need for additional

resources and could have an impact on service user perception and satisfaction with your service.

Depending on the nature of your helpline and client group you may have noticed an increase in demand in

the evenings, outside of school holidays, over the Christmas season, on Fridays or on the run up to payday.

Marketing Intelligence. In analysing the captured data you can establish the optimum location or target

audience for marketing campaigns. Asking service users, “Where did you hear about our service?” can elicit

information that can feed into your marketing strategy.

You may find you are not receiving calls from certain geographical areas. This could indicate that the need

for the service is low or that further promotion in that area is needed. Targeted marketing through optimum

channels and subsequent trend analysis would establish further intelligence.

Excluded or hard to reach clients. Regardless of your helpline’s purpose it is likely that you find certain

specific client group are harder to reach. This could be due to any number of reasons however social isolation

and exclusion are likely to be important factors.

The data could reveal that younger people are less likely to contact your service. Adding a text-based

solution could open up a more effective channel for young people to approach your service.

Exploring the impact of the service that you are offering. Being able to have access to reliable data will help

you to develop and measure performance indicators that can track how your helpline is doing over time. More

advanced contact logging systems can help to gather the data needed to show the outcomes that your helpline

is achieving.

Data from a contact logging system could help you to find out about call lengths or numbers of abandoned

calls and provide useful performance statistics.

Funding and Commissioning. Funding applications are heavily reliant on data to demonstrate demand for a

service and potential impact. Being able to quote facts and figures in your applications can give you a

competitive advantage when it comes to your application demonstrating how well used and relied upon your

service is.

If applying for funding alongside other support services it is likely you will be expected to evidence need and

outcomes, in relation to the established funding criteria. You may also be expected to provide an evaluation

by service users of the support you provide and this can be assisted by effectively logging contact

information.

Unmet Needs. Recording unmet needs through contact logging is important to establish the allocation of

resources and funding for local authorities and health bodies. Statistical evidence can inform the nature and

extent of the unmet need, highlighting gaps in service provision.

Tracking unmet needs over time could indicate that a specific service closure, local authority funding

reduction or benefits cut, has had an impact on your service users who are unable to obtain the support

they need. Informing local authorities of this data could lead to better targeting of resources and local

strategies.

What are your options?

Paper forms

Some organisations record the contacts they receive on paper noting various aspects of the enquiry, however,

this method is administratively heavy, requiring time collating, counting and analysing. Additionally, by its one

dimensional nature the amount of useful information gleaned is limited.

Spreadsheets e.g. MS Excel

Recording information into a spreadsheet is better than a paper based system, because you can sort and filter

the information. However it is still not ideal for large amounts of data. The architecture of spreadsheets tends to

be flat, consisting of numerous tabs and basic formulas to extrapolate the data required. Visual Basic for

Applications (VBA) enhances Excel’s functionality considerably but there are some aspects which could present

challenges such as its limited relational structure, long term data storage and possibility of file corruption.

Spreadsheet software can be useful for individuals with advanced knowledge, enabling them to create pivot

tables, charts and graphs from a data source either in a spreadsheet or an external database. However the

difficulty of allowing multiple access to a single file and the dangers of overwriting content pose significant

drawbacks.

Databases e.g. MS Access

There are two main reasons why people move away from a system such as Excel and utilise Access:

1. Duplication of data

2. Need for relational data

A database like Microsoft Access stores data separately from reports and queries. This allows the user to create

numerous reports from one set of data, reducing the risk of data duplication, and also sets up the relational

aspect in the database.

For example, an organisation might want to report on how many calls are placed to the helpline each month

filtering by location, gender and age. They may also need more detailed information about how quickly the

contact was responded to, whether the enquirer has contacted the service before and who referred them. These

can be stored as separate queries within the database but drawn from the same data set. Whilst a database

such as MS Access has greater flexibility and capacity for data storage it must be managed carefully to prevent

it becoming unwieldy for the end user.

Customer Relationship Management System (CRM)

This takes information management to a much higher level and can incorporate all your business needs such as

marketing intelligence, sales leads tracking and customer behaviour information along with integrating other

business critical systems such as finance, mailing management system and analytic software. Some CRM’s

allow you to integrate your telephone system, capturing statistics on calls received. CRM’s range from

inexpensive open source products to more costly bespoke software development. Research and planning are

essential if you wish to adopt a CRM to ensure it provides everything your service needs now and in the future.

What do you need to think about when considering a contact logging

system?

Does the system need to be used by more than one person at the same time?

Do you have non-office based or outreach workers? Do they require a mobile

application to record information while they are out and about?

Depending on the remit of your service, what types of information could be collected?

o Time and date of the contact

o Name of advisor

o How long the contact lasted

o How quickly the contact was answered

o What resources were used, who were they signposted or referred to

o Are they a repeat service user

o Is the caller the client (maybe calling on behalf of someone else a relative, child etc.)

o Location of caller and client (might be different)

o Age of caller / client

o Categories of need / topic / concern

o Gender of caller / client

o Unmet need (there wasn’t a service who could support their specific needs)

What are the most important aspects you wish to find out from your contacts? Looking at it in terms of

service delivery, staff resources and training, marketing activities, funding applications etc.

Will the data be useful? Time can be wasted capturing data which doesn’t serve a purpose but careful

consideration needs to be given so as not to leave out a specific piece of data which might have relational

importance or be relevant in future.

Does this information need to capture personal information? If so, this will have Data Protection and

privacy considerations, along with how the data is stored to ensure data integrity and security.

It may not be possible or appropriate to ask certain

questions of service users. Perhaps only some

information can be ascertained from the conversation

based on what the service user has divulged and a

follow up contact could be scheduled to capture

relevant data. These records will have to be matched

up through the unique identifier.

It is always important to build into the contact logging

system a way of recording facts that were unable to be

obtained by including a ‘Not Known’ or ‘Not Appropriate’

option. Interpreting this data could lead to insights on

call handler training, specific areas of sensitivity etc.

You may wish to capture specific facts about a service

user to enable a case history to be recorded, assisting

other handlers to ascertain the support provided in the

past and possible issues relating to repeat service

users.

The helpline manager, senior management and

trustees will each require different data to be collated to

inform various different aspects of their role and

strategic demands. The data will need to be collected

from the outset to inform the reports required.

Confidentiality Considerations

When thinking about using contact logging

key areas to consider are:

Making sure that service users understand how

and why you use their personal information. A

good way to do this is through your privacy

policy.

Reviewing your confidentiality policy when

changes are made to how you use and store

caller information.

Thinking about how your service users might

feel about any changes to how you use

personal information, or whether there are any

negative impacts on their privacy.

Asking any third party organisations that you

are working with to develop contact logging

solutions about how they keep your information

private and secure, and seeking formal

assurances if they will be storing or using data

from your organisation.

Conclusion

This eBook takes an introductory look at contact logging and like all things, every solution will be unique to the individual requirements of each organisation. We have touched on some of the main complexities and aspects to consider when exploring contact handling which might help your service to devise, revise, review and improve your contact logging requirements. Using our unique experience and understanding of the helpline sector we can develop, supply and train your

staff to use a simple, yet sophisticated contact logging tool specific to your service’s requirements. With our

expertise we can ensure you are provided with an affordable solution to suit the requirements of your helpline.

Our range of masterclasses explore outcome monitoring and data protection in more depth and the Helplines

Standard, the quality assurance accreditation developed specifically for the helpline sector, contains criteria

which address contact logging, data protection and confidentiality. To find out more about Helplines Partnership

training, contact logging solution and Helplines Standard click on the links below:

HELPLINES PARTNERSHIP

Business Design Centre

52 Upper Street

London N1 0QH UK

T 0300 330 7777

E info@helplines.org

W www.helplines.org

© 2015 Helplines Partnership

Registered Company No: 6484279

Registered Charity No: 1125840