Agenda item

         The Committee considered the following report:

 

“1.0     Purpose of Report or Summary of main Issues

 

1.1       The City and Neighbourhood Services Department working alongside Corporate Organisational Development (OD) and Digital Services, have been working with Deloitte to develop an outline business case (OBC) to provide recommendations on implementing a new approach to customer focus.

 

1.2       This report outlines some of the critical challenges and key benefits of adopting a corporate customer focussed business strategy and summarises the key recommendations contained within the Deloitte OBC.

 

2.0       Recommendations

 

            The Committee is asked to agree the following recommendations:

 

1.     That a corporate approach to customer management should be a key driver for on-going organisational change.

 

2.     A new blueprint for customer services should be based on the following principles outlined in the Deloitte OBC (See Appendix 1):

 

a.     Corporate approach, consistent and joined up and underpinned by standards,

b.     Deliver greater insight and analysis on customer behaviour,

c.     Improve the efficiency of processes,

d.     Ensure inclusivity and channel choice (digital first where possible),

e.     Improved customer experience (customer first),

f.       Provide access to the right information at the right time and from anywhere.

 

3.     A Customer Focus delivery team should be resourced to design and implement the best approach for the Council to deliver the recommendations contained in the Deloitte OBC.

 

4.     A discovery/design exercise should be procured to determine the key tasks, costs and resources that will be required to deliver a corporate approach to Customer Focus.

 

5.     On-going engagement with Trade Unions should continue due to the corporate nature of the customer focus programme. 

 

6.     Agree to allocate £500,000 to support the further development and implementation of this work.

 

3.0       Main report

 

3.1       One of the key ambitions of the Belfast Agenda is, ‘to deliver services differently, in a more integrated way that is focused on the needs of people.’ However, the current approach to customer management does not avail of the latest technologies which can drive better customer service and improve service delivery for the variety of customers which

the council serve. These are listed below.

 

3.2       The OBC has shown that our current approach is inefficient as outlined below:

 

·        130 different numbers are returned in a search for ‘Belfast City Council’ from www.ukphonebook.com,

·        We support over 700 Direct Dial-in (DDI) telephone numbers,

·        Multiple customer contact options (email and phone) are available on our website. See http://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/A-Z/AtoZListing.aspx?atoz=A,

·        We have 12 core CRM systems installed across the council and we have recently implemented an additional interim CRM for Planning,

·        We support an ICT inventory of over 90 different applications with customer information recorded across a significant number of these applications.

 

3.3       Also, given the scale of customer contact received by BCC (see Appendix 2), it is obvious that a customer focussed business strategy has the potential to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide, while substantially reducing the costs of service delivery. This will help us to:

 

·        Enhance our customer focus,

·        Join up the fragmented nature of our service delivery,

·        Better understand the cost of service delivery,

·        Improve officer productivity,

·        Realise efficiency savings for the organisation,

·        Provide services that are optimised and provide VFM,

·        Integrate our front and back office functions,

·        Provide customer insight to improve decision making,

·        Ensure services are delivered over the most cost effective channels,

·        And streamline and reduce the resources required to deliver our services.

 

3.4       To deliver the Deloitte customer focussed blueprint Members are asked to consider these key emerging challenges:

 

1.     The creation of a corporate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to deliver the centralisation of all customer interactions across the council which will enable analytics that covers the end-to-end customer journey.

2.     The creation of a Corporate contact Centre implementing and working towards a single email account and telephone number for all customer contact.

3.     Building a consistent multichannel experience based on customer insight.

4.     Redesigning all customer-facing processes to integrate front and back office processes, beginning with services that represent the bulk of interactions and the greatest amount of current pain points for citizens, to:

 

a.     Deliver customer centric processes

b.     Maximise first contact resolution and reduce avoidable contact.

 

5.     Managing the development of all council staff to handle all contacts, across all channels, in a consistent and professional manner.

6.     Undertaking a website review and redesign to:

 

c.     Deliver a simpler and clearer layout

d.     Cleaner navigation

e.     Rationalise web content

f.       Implement consistent and usable responsive online services.

 

3.5       The significance of changing our current customer services operating model and implementing a corporate customer focussed business strategy should not be underestimated, and successful delivery of a customer strategy in BCC will present challenges which include ensuring political and chief officer support, managing change and user adoption, and improving service standards while capturing and delivering efficiencies. For this reason, one of the key recommendations from the Customer Focus OBC is to initiate and to deliver a Discovery/Design Exercise that will determine how the new approach to customer focus will be delivered by building:

 

·        A vision for Customer Focus

·        Benefits Management

·        Marketing, communications and engagement

·        Technology change

 

o   Corporate CRM

o   ICT system rationalisation

o   Customer Contact Website

o   New Digital Services

 

3.6       Financial & Resource Implications

 

            The total resources required are £500,000 which will be considered by the committee as a reallocation as part of the Quarter 2 finance report.

 

            Customer Focus Delivery

 

            Customer Focus Discovery and Design

            exercise                                                                     £200,000

 

            Temporary Delivery Team                                       £300,000

 

                                                                                    Total   £500,000

 

3.7       Equality or Good Relations Implications

 

            None.”

 

         The Committee adopted the recommendations and noted that it had agreed earlier in the meeting, as part of the half year finance report 2017 – 18, to allocate £500,000 to support the further development and implementation of this work.