Accident Advice Helpline

Industry: Legal

Location: United Kingdom

Products Used: Web Filter

Claim Specialist Increases Productivity With Websense^® Web Filter

Accident Advice Helpline (AAH) is the U.K.’s largest compensation claim specialist, providing a service for thousands of people who want to claim compensation for injuries incurred as a result of a third-party negligence to include road traffic accidents, accidents at work or accidents in public places.

AAH processes in excess of 12,000 claims a year from members of the public. AAH employs 150 staff, two-thirds of whom are call-centre operatives.

The Problem

AAH’s business aims to be the first organisation called by those who have suffered accidents. Once a call has been assessed, AAH vigorously screens the details before offering the claim to one of its panel of solicitors.

Managers suspected call-centre staff were surfing the Web or using “chat” or “community” sites such as Facebook or MySpace during the working day rather than processing accident claims. The IT department was unable to manage this and ensure sensible levels of Web access for AAH’s employees.

As AAH’s IT manager, Darren Taylor is answerable to the company’s directors for all aspects of IT that support the company’s business operations. He was conscious of AAH’s need for productive call-centre operations and needed to gauge the access needed by the staff — plus managers, accounts and marketing personnel, to IT applications, including notably, Internet access.

“Predominantly, we’re a call-centre. Users come in, work their shift, using a database, which is all they need to use,” said Taylor. “They don’t need Internet access to do their jobs, so it’s very much a case of understanding and managing Web access to ensure sensible and safe levels of use. If necessary, AAH can restrict Internet access at a lower level or block access to inappropriate sites,” Taylor added.

This inability to understand and address Web misuse was significantly lowering AAH’s productivity, not to mention undermining its investment in improved bandwidth.

AAH asked The Internet Group, its ongoing IT services supplier, to investigate a suitable solution that would enable it to manage Internet access and prevent access to specific websites, covering areas such as travel, entertainment, gambling, adult content, and jobs.

The Solution

Taylor needed a tool that would enable him to gauge inappropriate Web use, and then restrict access to specific applications at various levels. Although his managers were aware call-centre staff was misusing the Web during working hours, he couldn’t prove it.

The Internet Group recommended Websense^® Web Filter to track website use and allowed AAH to prevent unauthorised or unnecessary Internet access to specific website categories. According to The Internet Group’s director Mitchell Feldman, using Websense ensures problems “find” Taylor, rather than him having to go and hunt them down. It also aids AAH with regulatory compliance. Websense ensures AAH has an audit trail in place while managing staff access to non work-related websites and applications. AAH is rigorous in its compliance regime, because it has to be.

“AAH is extremely IT-savvy and its investment in IT connectivity has been huge. But when staff are accessing websites using streaming media, such as YouTube, and Facebook, they are literally draining its vital bandwidth resources. AAH is conversing with parties such as solicitors, so it is vital that it has a high quality of service in place,” says Feldman.

The Results

Websense enables AAH to categorise the type of websites visited, from travel and government, to job-related sites, news or community sites. AAH’s IT department can then decide which of those sites are productive or non-productive for employees, and thus where access should be prevented. This is an important issue for AAH because, although its call-centre staff work seven days a week, some of AAH’s managers do not and they are reliant on weekend call-centre staff focusing on doing their job, not surfing the Web.

“Websense enabled us to automate our Web use policy so we can easily manage Internet access and ensure that everyone is using the Web sensibly,” said Taylor. “More than giving us an insight into what our staff are doing with the Internet, it also shows how the average user works their way around a PC, trying things that they really don’t need to do, and so shouldn’t have access to.”

The long-term misuse of applications like Instant Messaging (IM) are Taylor’s biggest concern, together with peer-to-peer applications, which encourages the illicit delivery of spyware. “The beauty of Websense is we can see what people are doing then and there and have the ability to block the specifics in an instant if we have any concerns about security or bandwidth.”

Using Websense helps the company to maximise the service benefits from its IT investment in improved bandwidth. “By using Websense, we estimate our non-productive web usage has been reduced by 50 percent. We’ve saved around 125 working hours a day — and that’s 800 hours a week in terms of improved productivity.”

“Looking ahead, we’re planning to make some significant changes to our infrastructure,” said Taylor. “As part of that, Websense will be moving forward with us and we’re looking to upgrade to version 7 soon,” said Taylor.

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