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Improving Customer Service at Test Valley

Published: 17 March 2008

With so many different services, every local authority faces the challenge of joining up telephone and face-to-face customer contact. Test Valley Borough Council’s traditional approach was managed at department level, and customers’ personal data was stored at department level.

Five years ago the Council made a commitment to make radical changes to the way it worked with its customers. The aim was to present the Council as a single organisation rather than a series of departments:

• Customers visiting the Borough Council’s two offices, to make enquiries, would no longer be transferred by the front-of-house reception desk to a service reception to deal with their specific enquiry.

• Incoming telephone enquiries would be handled by a new customer services team, where they would be answered or re-directed as appropriate. The Revenues and Benefits department would continue to operate its own call centre to deal with its significant number of incoming specialist Council Tax related enquiries.

• The drive to share customer data between departments began, to minimise the need for customers to repeat information to several departments.

• The Council’s website was to be redeveloped to allow a wider range of online interactions.

CUSTOMER CENTRIC SERVICE DELIVERY

In the past 12 months, Test Valley Borough Council has moved onto a whole new phase of change.

Firstly, the Borough Council has undertaken a complete review of some of its key business processes; including whether processes could move to a front-office department or stay at a specialist departmental level and if so, how it could be managed.

Additionally, it reviewed which other departments might need access to the information provided by customers during any given process and, finally whether any processes could be eliminated.

Telephone contact
In the Customer Service Unit, the Borough Council made some important changes:

• Re-organisation of the department structure
• Greater integration with the wider organisation
• Recruitment of a Customer Services Manager
• Introduction of staff workshops to enable a greater focus on ‘customer experience’

Gandlake Citizen’s Account Customer Service Access Module (CSAM) was also implemented in both the Customer Service Unit and Council Tax call centre. The CSAM acts as an information portal; the software enables staff to query account data and view PDF images of Council Tax and Business Rates statements, demands and e-bills, just as they would be viewed by customers.

This means that many more telephone queries can be resolved at the first point of contact with greater knowledge, speed and efficiency,.

For the Borough Council, implementing CSAM in the Customer Services Unit is an important step in the drive to ensure staff can answer enquiries at the first point of contact.

In order to present Council Tax and Business Rates, CSAM extracts data directly from the Council’s customer data infrastructure.

Managed and hosted by Gandlake, the Borough Council was guaranteed a quick and effective implementation without additional infrastructure costs, software licenses or ongoing support.

Face-to-face contact
The Borough Council took the decision that both front-of-house reception desks would be equipped to handle the bulk of face-to-face enquiries, while more complex customer enquiries could be efficiently routed to the relevant back-office department.

CSAM was implemented in both front-of-house reception desks and in the Revenues and Benefits back office department.

Again, this enables staff to query customer account data and view PDF images of Council Tax and Business Rates statements, demands and e-bills, just as they would be viewed by residents. Similar to telephone contact, CSAM enables staff to respond to face-to-face queries at the first point of contact with greater knowledge, speed and efficiency.

Online Contact
Like many other local authorities, the Borough Council accepts e-payments through its website – approximately 600 per month.

Council Tax and Business Rates account data is also available through secure online accounts enabling citizens and businesses to answer their own enquiries online. By registering for the service, customers can access, view and check personal information online – 24 hours per day, 7 days a week – relating to Council Tax and Business Rates such as balances, statements, personal payment history, instalment plans and payments received.

The Borough Council is using Gandlake Citizen’s Account e-presentment platform to deliver the online accounts.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE

• Supported by CSAM, the Customer Service Unit will be able to handle the bulk of customer telephone contact, almost 150,000 calls per year. This will include straight-forward Council Tax enquiries. Only the most complicated Council Tax telephone enquiries will then be routed to the back-office or Revenues and Benefits Council Tax call centre.

The Council predicts that 30 per cent of calls traditionally handled in the back-office will be answered in the Customer Service Unit in future.

• A combination of telephone and face-to-face contact moving forward to the front office, supported by technology such as CSAM, is enabling departments to redirect staff resources elsewhere in the Council.

• The number of customers using online accounts to access personal data is rising rapidly with around 800 registrations in the first few months since launch. It is also helping to move citizens away from traditional channels of communication, walk-ins, letters and telephone calls.

What’s next?
Test Valley Borough Council expects to use CSAM to answer even more simple Council Tax enquiries at the first point of contact in the Customer Services Unit. The most complex, professional, enquiries will continue to be routed to the back-office or Council Tax call centre.

It may also expand the customer data available for presentation through CSAM to include Housing Benefits and potentially, correspondence and other stored documents.

The Council also aims to increase the number of customers registering for its online accounts – promoting online services wherever possible.

Finally, the Borough Council is implementing a new Customer Data Hub (in-house CRM-style system) which will improve information sharing across the authority, providing a single view of the customer.

The Borough Council will use the data to understand how many calls are going to the back-office, how many are answered in the front office and, ultimately, help deliver a greater understanding of how customers interact with the authority.