North Ayrshire Council’s ‘Contact Us’ process has been updated to enhance how our residents engage with the Council and ensure they can get the support they need from our services, quickly and efficiently.
As a result, the previous Contact Us mailbox is now obsolete.
Fiona Walker, Head of People & ICT shares: “Analysis was undertaken by our team earlier this year to understand the volumes and types of enquiries being received via the current contact us email address to design and create the new process we now have today.“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 Transformation team in conjunction with services across the Council have been working on the digital workstream to improve access to Council services.
Part of this workstream is the redesigned Contact Us process (which went live on Monday 5 June) – it now 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.
Did you know?
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 previous process was an email facility, there was no mechanism to ask customers for their details or additional information in relation to their enquiry which often resulted in further communication with customers and delays in responding to enquiries.
Creating innovative solutions to meet our residents needs
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 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.
Fiona adds: “It offers a far more streamlined journey as customer 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 new Contact Us process also reflects the priorities and principles of our new Digital Strategy were we are utilising the latest technology to standardise customer requests and puts our customers at the heart of what we do.”
If you know someone who wants to contact North Ayrshire Council, direct them to the landing page of our website: https://www.north-ayrshire.gov.uk where they will find information and contact details for all our services or alternatively they can visit the new Contact Us webpage.
Watch a video about the new Digital Strategy below and read more in the news release here.