Action Fraud Service Operating Audit Contract Appendix B Service Description APPENDIX B SERVICE DESCRIPTION CONTENTS

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1 APPENDIX B SERVICE DESCRIPTION CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION PURPOSE BACKGROUND TO THE AUTHORITY BACKGROUND TO REQUIREMENT/OVERVIEW OF REQUIREMENT SCOPE OF REQUIREMENT SERVICE LEVELS AND PERFORMANCE ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS LOCATION SECURITY REQUIREMENTS... 5 Page 1 of 5http://

2 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The National Fraud Authority (NFA) is an executive agency of the Home Office. Set up in 2008, it leads and coordinates the fight to reduce fraud affecting: individuals and public, private (including SME`s) and third sector organisations. As part of this delivery, the NFA runs Action Fraud, the national fraud and internet crime reporting centre, which is a first of its kind police service enabling members of the public and businesses to report fraud online or by phone and to get prevention advice. Action Fraud works with partners in law enforcement - the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), run by the City of London Police - to make sure fraud reports reach the right place. With Action Fraud now expanding its remit to take all non-emergency reports of fraud and internet crime that would previously have been reported to the police, the time is appropriate to audit the service being delivered across the online and contact centre channels, and plan for service enhancements based on a detailed understanding of customer needs. 2. PURPOSE 2.1 When the Action Fraud service was established in 2009, much effort was taken to ensure that customers provided highly detailed fraud reports to satisfy police crime recording requirements. This had the advantage of collecting up-front all information that might benefit NFIB analysis and police investigation, and was an entirely appropriate response to establishing the legitimacy of a new reporting service. Now that Action Fraud has been operational for three years, the timing is right to review how delivery of the service is keeping up with evolving customer expectations, to ensure it provides the correct level of support and increased opportunity to report in the most time-efficient and cost-effective way. The service must be audited as a whole, looking at all channels of engagement both on- and offline. It is important to understand whether the service offers an accessible, efficient and suitable product, including studying what causes Action Fraud to struggle to attract a greater amount of reports online. Overall purpose of the procurement: To gain a full understanding of Action Fraud s different customer types in order to ensure that the support service and reporting function meets their needs. To ensure that Action Fraud remains customer-oriented and able to provide a modern, flexible and efficient crime reporting service, it is important to learn the lessons from others in the wider on- and offline marketplace. Evaluating and auditing the customer journey will provide insight into the customer experience of Action Fraud, and the expectations and reality of reporting a fraud or internet crime. Exploring customer expectations and experience will provide insight as to any areas for service improvement, as well as those areas where no change is necessary. The findings and recommendations from this audit will inform work activity to redress the balance of online and contact centre reporting towards online reporting, and ensure ongoing cost effective use of resources. Page 2 of 5http://

3 3. BACKGROUND TO THE AUTHORITY Action Fraud is the UK s national reporting centre for fraud and internet crime, which provides support to citizens and a reporting service for crime and crime related incidents through its web based and contact centre channels. Members of the public, the police, businesses and charities can report to Action Fraud online at or on the telephone. Action Fraud is run by the National Fraud Authority, an executive agency of the Home Office. 4. BACKGROUND TO REQUIREMENT/OVERVIEW OF REQUIREMENT 4.1 The Action Fraud service has been operational since October In that time over 116,000 crime reports have been received, with a total value of crime reported of over 1.11 billion. In November 2012, the contact centre saw its busiest month, with over 23,000 calls, and 100,000 visits to the website. By April 2013, all non-emergency fraud and internet crime reports that were previously processed by police forces will instead be taken by Action Fraud, before being sent on to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) for analysis and investigation. This centralisation of fraud reporting will free up valuable police resources and enhance the intelligence picture from around the country, enabling more fraud and internet crimes to be disrupted. With this expanded remit, many more individuals, businesses, charities and police officers will be contacting Action Fraud for advice and to report fraud and internet crime. Resources at the contact centre are being increased to handle the anticipated increase in calls. At the same time, and in line with the Cabinet Office Digital by Default objectives, Action Fraud is looking to increase the proportion of reports submitted via the online reporting tool on the website aiming 50% of reports to be submitted online, but with current proportions significantly below this level. In addition, many people who start their report online choose to abandon it before completion. This audit will help us to address these issues with online reporting, while also taking stock of the service delivered by the contact centre and recommending any improvements to the service required to meet increasing customer demand. 5. SCOPE OF REQUIREMENT 5.1 The audit has been broken down into four key stages. NB. These stages could overlap and do not necessarily have to be approached consecutively. Stage 1 Understanding Action Fraud customer types The first step in auditing the Action Fraud service will be to establish the types of customer that currently engage with Action Fraud. It is not the case that all current customers are victims of fraud or internet crime, so it will be important to establish the range of customers that engage with the service. This objective approach will help ensure decisions on updating or improving the service are based on a detailed understanding of customers and their needs. This applies to both the contact centre and the website. The key questions to answer at this stage are: Who is coming to Action Fraud and why? What are their needs? How did they find Action Fraud, and what are they looking to do? What proportion are victims of fraud / internet crime? Page 3 of 5http://

4 What other types of customer visit Action Fraud? What are they looking for? Who is not coming to Action Fraud? Is there a gap between the types of customer the service needs to reach and the customers actually arriving? With a full understanding of Action Fraud s different customer types we will be in a better position to ensure that the service and reporting function meets their needs. This work will help to ensure that any future enhancements to online and contact centre reporting have customer requirements built in from the outset. 5.2 Stage 2 Understanding the on- and offline marketplace The Action Fraud reporting service provides a highly cost effective and customeroriented route to provide information and report incidents of fraud or internet crime. There are numerous benefits of the service to the customer, not least of which the 24/7 availability of reporting through the online tool. This convenience of reporting, however, has not directly translated into increased proportions reporting through the online channel rather than the contact centre. This audit seeks to establish why this is the case, and recommend any necessary activity to redress this balance. The audit must also explore the wider online marketplace, to establish good practice on other websites or digital channels where lessons could be learned for the benefit of Action Fraud. It is useful to consider here the fact that Action Fraud customers are interacting online with other public sector and commercial organisations every day, and will inevitably draw comparisons between the service they receive. With online banking and shopping becoming ever more sophisticated and convenient for customers, expectations around what it is possible to deliver online have increased across the board. If it is straightforward and relatively simple to go online and report graffiti to the local council, apply for a passport, or renew car tax, then this is the marketplace our customers are in when they approach Action Fraud, even if they were to acknowledge the additional complexities of reporting a crime. To ensure that Action Fraud remains customer-oriented and able to provide a modern, flexible crime reporting and support service, it is important to learn the lessons from others in the wider on- and offline marketplace. Any recommendations must be viewed alongside the need to achieve viable information from victims to record a crime, and the Cabinet Office digital by default objectives. 5.3 Stage 3 Exploring and defining the Customer Journey This service audit must start at the first point of contact with Action Fraud, whether it is on the website or the telephone. We are looking for comparisons to be made between the service experienced through the contact centre and online channels. Customers may have different reasons for choosing to contact Action Fraud through either channel, but their overall experience and satisfaction should be comparable, in the same way that you would expect similar service from your bank if you were online or on the telephone. An important part of the review will be to explore customer expectations from the service. Customer satisfaction can only be fully understood in comparison with expectations, and this work would review expectations and motivations for using the service with the actual experience delivered. Activity would involve those people that have used the online tool, and those who have used the contact centre, and establishing step-by-step how the service they received compared with their expectations. The activity would also involve potential customers, i.e. people who have not yet gone through the process of contacting Action Fraud. It would again be important to Page 4 of 5http://

5 establish their expectations of the service, then to take them through the process of interacting with the website and online reporting, and evaluate how the reality compares with their expectations. This has the benefit of taking an ordinary person through the process and experiencing the service through their eyes, and will likely produce some useful insights into reasons why online reporting is not achieving the expected volumes. 5.4 Stage 4 Review findings and recommendations At this stage the full service audit and final recommendations will be made available for review by the Action Fraud team. 6. SERVICE LEVELS AND PERFORMANCE 6.1 The NFA will measure the quality of the Supplier s delivery, and for the project to be deemed a success the following qualitative and quantitative criteria will need to be met: Qualitative factors We will gain a full understanding of Action Fraud s different customer types to ensure that any decisions on updating or improving the service are based on evidence and not assumptions about customers and their needs. This will include ensuring that the Action Fraud service meets all necessary equality requirements Exploring customer expectations and experience will provide insight as to any areas for improvement, as well as those areas where no change is necessary, so ensuring that future investment is targeted to deliver maximum gains. The end result will ensure that the support tools we have in place both offand online meet customer needs, and the process of reporting to Action Fraud is intuitive and straightforward across all channels Quantitative factors Implementation of the findings and recommendations from this project will: help shift the balance of reporting towards 50% online and 50% contact centre reports; enable testing of improvements to the online reporting tool to reduce the abandonment rate to 10% or less. 7. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS We would like work to commence by late January 2013, with interim findings available mid February, and full audit findings and recommendations by the end of February. 8. LOCATION The location of the Services will be carried out at: The National Fraud Authority, Third Floor, Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF. 9. SECURITY REQUIREMENTS 9.1 There are no specific security requirements or clearance levels required for this project. Page 5 of 5http://