The Communication Gap – The Unrecognised Cost Within Your Avoidable Demand
Most people working in local government are familiar with the concept of failure demand. It has fundamentally changed the way organisations think about operational performance.
Instead of simply measuring demand, it encourages us to ask a more important question:
“Why did this demand exist in the first place?”
For many organisations, that question has led to significant improvements in service delivery. Operational failures have been identified. Processes have been redesigned. Waiting times have reduced. Services have improved.
It has helped organisations remove avoidable work by understanding what caused it.
But what if there is another source of avoidable demand that rarely receives the same level of attention?
Not because it is insignificant.
But because it has traditionally been viewed as simply part of the cost of doing business.
The Demand We Rarely Question
Every day, residents contact organisations because they don’t fully understand the communication they have received:
“What does this letter mean?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Why have I received this?”
“Which option applies to me?”
These interactions are so familiar that they rarely attract attention.
They are accepted as part of customer service. Part of providing advice. Part of supporting residents.
Yet they are asking exactly the same question that failure demand encourages us to ask.
Why did this interaction need to exist in the first place?
Two Very Different Types of Avoidable Demand
Imagine two residents contacting the council.
The first telephones because their bin was not collected. The service failed to do what it promised.
The second telephones because they don’t understand a Council Tax letter. The service itself may be working exactly as intended. The communication isn’t.
Both interactions consume organisational capacity. Both appear in the same operational statistics. Both have a cost.
Yet they originate from entirely different causes. One is created by operational failure. The other by the Communication Gap.
Recognising that distinction matters because the solutions are entirely different.
One requires the service to improve. The other requires understanding to improve.
We Already Measure the Cost
Organisations already know what customer contact costs.
They know how many calls they answer. How many emails they receive. How many webchat sessions they handle. How many complaints they investigate. How many visits are made to reception. How much time their customer service teams spend supporting residents.
These costs are not hidden.
The question is whether we fully understand what is creating them.
If a proportion of avoidable demand exists because understanding wasn’t achieved in the original communication, then improving operational efficiency alone will never remove it.
We may simply become more efficient at responding to communication that failed to create understanding.
The Communication Gap Doesn’t Remove Work. It Moves It.
When communication fails to create understanding, the work doesn’t disappear. It moves.
It moves from the communication into customer services.
From a letter into a telephone conversation.
From a self-service transaction into assisted service.
From the resident to a family member.
From today into next week.
From a straightforward enquiry into a complaint.
The Communication Gap doesn’t eliminate effort. It redistributes it. Often to the people whose time is most valuable.
Looking Through a Different Lens
This isn’t an argument against failure demand. It is an extension of the same thinking.
Failure demand has encouraged organisations to ask where operational failures create avoidable work.
The same question can now be asked of communication.
How much avoidable demand exists because people first needed help understanding what had already been communicated?
Until organisations begin separating operational demand from communication-generated demand, part of the picture is likely to remain hidden in plain sight.
Where Vera Fits
This is where Vera contributes.
Its purpose isn’t to replace human conversations. Many conversations are valuable. Many are essential.
Its purpose is to help more people understand communication well enough to make informed decisions about the course of action that is right for their own circumstances.
Sometimes that will lead to independent action. Sometimes it will lead to asking for support. Sometimes it will lead to contacting the organisation.
Those are all successful outcomes when they begin with understanding.
The opportunity lies in ensuring that people seek support because they need help with the service itself, not because they first need help understanding the communication.
That is how organisations begin reducing one of the least recognised contributors to avoidable demand while improving outcomes for the people they serve.
Thought to Leave You With
If we only measure operational failure, we may overlook one of the biggest opportunities to reduce avoidable demand: the Communication Gap.
About the Communication Insights series
This briefing is the fifth in a series exploring The Communication Gap—how organisations can strengthen their communication capability to ensure more people understand, access and benefit from the services available to them.
