Published: 17 March 2008
The London Borough of Croydon can now present customer account information through secure online accounts enabling citizens, businesses, social landlords and other partners to answer their own Council Tax, Business Rates and Benefits enquiries.
The Council forecasts that if just 10 per cent of its citizens register for an online account, and 60 per cent of registered citizens answer at least one query online, it will ‘free-up’ approximately 752 full-time staff hours per month.
“The online accounts we are providing will give customers instant access to their information 24 hours per day, 7 days a week and add significant capacity during peak periods,” says Graham Cadle, the council’s Divisional Director Financial Customer Services,. “Interactions with customers take on average eight minutes by telephone and twenty minutes by post which is an extremely time consuming and costly method of communicating with customers. If we can switch just a small proportion of this communication online we will make considerable time savings freeing-up staff to focus on other more complex queries.”
Registration for an online account meets the required security standards to ensure customer information remains confidential.
Customers in Croydon will be able to use their own secure online account to view, check or answer any questions relating to Housing Benefits or Council Tax Benefits such as personal claim details and a breakdown of benefits calculations; a history of payments received and payments due to be received. Landlords will also be able to use the Benefits service to check payments made to them.
Customers registering for the service will also be able to access, view and check personal information online relating to Council Tax and Business Rates such as balances, statements, personal payment history, instalment plans and payments received.
Customer Centric Service Delivery
Live from February 2008, PDF images of Council Tax and Business Rates demands, Benefits notification letters and statements of account, will also be available to front-office contact centre staff to assist them when answering customer enquiries.
When dealing with incoming calls, contact centre staff will be able to view demands and statements exactly as they are viewed by customers – ensuring the Council can respond to customers telephone enquiries with greater knowledge, speed and efficiency.
“We are putting valuable information at the fingertips of our contact centre staff enabling them to answer incoming enquires at the first point of contact,” adds Graham Cadle.
Working with IT outsourcing partner Northgate Information Systems, the Council has installed Gandlake Citizen’s Account including the Gandlake Customer Service Access Module. Managed and hosted by Gandlake, local authorities are guaranteed quick and effective implementations without additional infrastructure costs, software licenses or ongoing support.
For more information on the London Borough of Croydon, please visit Croydon Council.
