As part of the Accessing Our Council Transformation workstream which commenced in March 22, the Transformation team in conjunction with services across the Council have been working on the digital workstream to improve access to Council services.
This included the review of the current Contact Us process.
Annually over 15,000 emails are received and triaged by our Customer Services team from the current contact us email address.
Contact from customers can be varied including information and service requests for Council services which require to be responded to within 20 working days.
As the current process is an email facility there is no mechanism to ask customers for their details or additional information in relation to their enquiry which can often result in further communication with customers and delays in responding to enquiries.
The review process for Contact Us investigated:
- The number and types of enquiries which were being received on an annual basis via the current email.
- The pain points of the current process.
- How our current technology/systems could be utilised to improve the customer journey.
- How our website could be utilised to direct customers to information on Council services.
- How other Councils operated their Contact Us service.
Fiona Walker, Head of People & ICT shares: “Analysis was undertaken by our team to understand the volumes and types of enquiries being received via the current contact us email address to design and create the new process going live today – Monday 5 June.”
Our redesigned Contact Us process (going live on Monday 5 June) offers a streamlined customer journey, utilising the Council’s corporate technology to standardised customer requests while putting our customers at the heart of what we do.
The new process also reflects the priorities and principals of our new Digital Strategy by designing our services with our people and customers.
“By working collaboratively, with Customer Services, IT and other key stakeholders, the new Contact Us process was created using our corporate Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) and Online forms technology. It demonstrates our commitment to utilising the latest technology in order to adapt to and keep up with the changing needs of our residents.”
The new process allows our Customer Service Team to now direct customers to information and online forms on our website where appropriate while still giving them the opportunity to raise a service request including all the relevant customer contact details if they are unable to find the information or assistance they require.
These requests will no longer be triaged by Customer Services, instead they will be routed directly to the appropriate service via the CRM for a response. This ensures that customer requests are routed to the correct service first time, and they can be responded to more effectively and efficiently.
The result is a streamlined customer journey, utilising our corporate technology to standardised customer requests and puts our customers at the heart of what we do.
The new process also reflects the priorities and principals of our new Digital Strategy by designing our services with our people and customers.
Keep a look out in Summer Staff Talk (landing mid-June) for more upcoming Digital Strategy developments…