Case Study · Government & Justice
Reimagining Justice Services for the Digital Age
Discover how HM Courts & Tribunals Service transformed its contact centre experience—improving accessibility, simplifying processes, and delivering faster, more consistent support for citizens across the UK.
The HMCTS journey
A conversational timeline that meets citizens where they are
Scroll or tap through each milestone to see how modern platforms, inclusive design, and automation reshaped HMCTS from the inside out.
01
Starting Point
A service stretched by millions of citizen enquiries.
HMCTS fielded everything from court listings to tribunal updates, yet legacy systems made it hard for citizens to self-serve or reach the right agent the first time.
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02
The Challenge
Disjointed channels and little insight into demand.
Callers repeated their story with every transfer, advisors juggled several disconnected tools, and leaders lacked real-time visibility to plan staffing or policy improvements.
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03
The Turning Point
Putting citizens and staff experience at the centre.
HMCTS committed to an omnichannel roadmap that combined discovery workshops, accessibility standards, and secure cloud platforms to simplify complex processes.
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04
Where They Are Today
Virtual contact centres delivering consistent justice support.
More than 1,600 people now collaborate inside one virtual environment, providing faster, more reliable help to citizens across England and Wales—whenever and however they need it.
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Challenges
Pain points we uncovered with frontline teams
Hover or focus each card to reveal the insight that shaped the transformation roadmap.
Fragmented systems
Advisors switched between CRMs, telephony, and spreadsheets. Every toggle added seconds at scale.
Insight
We mapped the agent desktop to spot redundant clicks and consolidate the highest-volume tasks into a single workspace.
No unified reporting
Leadership couldn't see national demand spikes quickly enough to shift resources.
Insight
Workshops with regional leaders shaped an analytics layer that surfaces live queue health and historical demand by jurisdiction.
Accessibility gaps
Citizens with hearing, language, or mobility needs struggled to reach the right help in their channel of choice.
Insight
Inclusive design reviews embedded BSL video relay, real-time transcription, and adaptive web chat journeys from day one.
No dedicated IT function
Any solution had to be resilient, secure, and operable remotely without a large internal support team.
Insight
Cloud guardrails, automation runbooks, and 24/7 observability dashboards now keep the platform running without on-site teams.
Solutions
How we helped HMCTS deliver seamless citizen support
Each capability combines secure technology, thoughtful service design, and automation to free agents for high-value guidance.
Virtual contact centre environment
virtualA cloud-first hub where more than 1,600 volunteers and staff can pick up voice, chat, email, or video cases from anywhere.
Queue-balancing rules distribute cases in seconds, improving time-to-answer during peak court seasons.
Simplified user experience
simplifiedJourney blueprints from discovery workshops informed an intuitive desktop for advisors.
Context-aware prompts reduce cognitive load and speed up safeguarding checks.
Multimodal citizen support
multimodalVoice, chat, web forms, and messaging now sit in one case history, so citizens pick the channel that suits them best.
Repeat contacts dropped as citizens stay in one conversation from start to finish.
Automation of manual tasks
automationBots handle triage, data validation, and updates to justice systems.
Advisors spend more time guiding citizens through complex decisions instead of rekeying information.
Real-time enterprise statistics
realtimeLeaders track all channels in one performance cockpit with alerts for sudden demand swings.
Operational reviews now take hours instead of weeks, enabling faster policy adjustments.
Results
Impact in numbers and lived experience
Empowered people
0+
Advisors and volunteers working inside one secure platform.
Faster response times
0%
Average speed-to-answer improvement across priority channels.
One virtual hub for justice
Volunteers and staff collaborate inside the same secure workspace, enabling consistent support nationwide.
Source: HMCTS modernisation programme
Why it worked
Listening first, designing with the people who serve citizens
Discovery conversations captured the real-world realities of HMCTS advisors and citizens, ensuring every technology decision reduced effort and built trust.
“The new platform feels built around our conversations with citizens. We spend less time switching systems and more time helping people understand what happens next.”
Change management in action
Co-designed playbooks, virtual training, and a national community of practice keep new features grounded in frontline needs.
Expert answers
HMCTS modernisation FAQ
What is HMCTS?
HM Courts & Tribunals Service is the UK agency that administers criminal, civil, and family courts and tribunals across England and Wales.
Why did HMCTS modernise its contact centres?
Legacy tools slowed staff, created accessibility barriers for citizens, and limited the insight leadership needed to improve services.
What technology was introduced?
A secure, cloud-based omnichannel platform that blends telephony, digital channels, automation, and real-time analytics.
What results were achieved?
1,600+ staff empowered, faster citizen service across channels, simplified advisor workflows, and national visibility of demand.
Call to action
Want to deliver faster, smarter, more accessible citizen services?
Our experience with HMCTS shows what’s possible when public sector organisations put citizens at the centre of digital transformation.