PEOPLE ringing City of York Council could soon find themselves facing a "call-centre style" pre-recorded message system.

Under proposals for a new Corporate Contact Centre (CCC) which is set to cost more than £170,000, residents would find themselves being put through to an automated system instead of speaking to a switchboard.

But council chiefs have accepted that a system of push button "menus" might "not be welcomed" by callers, and the public services union Unison has attacked the scheme.

On the streets, the Evening Press found there were concerns among elderly people about how the new system would operate.

The measures, proposed as part of the easy@york service review, would start to kick in from March next year, and would initially apply to calls to the York Pride line and planning and building control.

Over the following years to 2010, more and more council departments, including benefits, parking and housing management, would move to the CCC, leading to a corporate "one-stop-shop" when the council moves to new premises.

Council chiefs said it would improve the efficiency with which calls were dealt with and ensure they were connected to the people most suitable to answer inquiries.

Seven more staff would be needed to handle the work of the new office - costing about £172,000 a year.

Unison spokeswoman Heather Mackenzie said it had serious concerns about the proposals. "Customers have not been consulted about this," she said.

"Are interactive voice recognition or automated menus for callers just 'features' that customers might not want, or even resent? Some would say it's folly to believe that computers are better at forging relationships with customers than people.

"Because of allure of the features offered by computer technologies, we have seen many instances where IT 'solutions' create worse service for the customer and higher costs for the organisation."

James Player, of Age Concern York, said he had yet to find anyone who actually liked the idea of automated call systems. "We are urgently seeking further information from the council on this," he said.

"A lot of older people and members of the public don't like using automated systems. They can be extremely frustrating, especially if people don't get the help they want efficiently and effectively."

The council's executive agreed to press ahead with the scheme, but council leader Steve Galloway warned that the system must be "customer-friendly."

Officers said the aim would be to ensure that callers had to face no more than two automatic menus before they spoke to a person. They warned that without using automatically routing of calls, there would be significant costs.

James Drury, the council's head of public services, said existing switchboard staff would be moved into the new CCC.

"We appreciate there is some concern from customers generally around this, but the reason we are doing it is so people can speak to someone who can answer their inquiry and have the right kind of skills to do that.

"This will be a gradual process. We are not going for a 'big bang'. The idea is that we will have a bigger pool of people that will be available to inform callers."

:: How will it work

THE CCC will set up a team to deal with phone contact for services.

The council claims using an automated system would mean the time currently taken to answer some inquiries could be used dealing with complaints, feedback and answering frequently asked questions.

It says in order to free up this resource it will have to use call handling and speech recognition technology, so when customers call in they will use either push button menus or speech to identify what kind of call they are making.

Then calls will be transferred to the correct extension or to the CCC.

Initially it will "signpost" calls for other services and log complaints as well as take some customer payments, but this role will grow as the CCC expands.

:: WHAT do York people think about an automated switchboard? LUKE BEDDOWS found out

Retired Olive Burrows, 66, of Acomb, York - "I don't like recorded voices, you have no confidence as you want to discuss with a real person."

Retired Pat Rowley, of Hull Road, York - "It's hard not talking to a person and the older generation may not be able to see the buttons for the options."

Beryl Lazenby, 60, of Askham Bryan - "I don't like the idea of a recorded voice. With York as my home council, I would like to be able to speak to a person."

Updated: 09:59 Thursday, July 28, 2005