Issue - meetings

To receive and consider report 224/05 of the Strategic Director. 

Introduction and Report Summary

This report draws on a number of sources notably:

·             The Consultants Report in respect of Customer Contact Strategy

·             Business Case in respect of Customer Contact Strategy

·             Project Appraisal Local Services Point 2

·             Consultants Report in respect of partnering and/or outsourcing of Revenue and Benefit Services and

·             Best Value Review Revenues and Benefits

The report draws together the issues arising from the above documents and recommendations for the adoption of a Customer Contact Strategy.

The Contact Officer for this report is Tim Sadler Strategic Director, 01235 540360.

Recommendation

That the Executive recommends to Council the Customer Contact Strategy attached to this report.

(Time: 3.48pm to 3.54pm)

The Executive received and considered report 224/05 of the Strategic Director setting out a draft Customer Contact Strategy.  The rationale behind the strategy was to give clear direction and set clear expectations regarding the development of access to services, local service points, contact centres and how service re-engineering, workflow and use of the contact centre would improve customer satisfaction, services and efficiency. 

The aims of the strategy were:

• To develop cost effective channels to encourage as many customers as possible to self-serve or use our call centre services
• To co-ordinate customer service to ensure a quality repeatable service which reflected the adopted service standards
• Take opportunities to re-design processes and workflow to create efficiencies
• To continue to develop access channels to reflect changing customers preferences

The following principles underpinned the strategy:

• A small number of reliable access points of contact
• Consistent delivery of service standards
• Automation of transactions
• Removal of duplication and overlap
• From an efficiency point of view, self serve was the Council’s preferred channel

The cost savings achievable from the strategy were estimated at £40-50K per annum.  However, as the actual cost savings after implementation were yet to be identified, the working assumption in the budget was that in the medium term, after implementation costs, the strategy would be cost neutral.  The cost of implementing the contact centre had been estimated at £240K.  This sum had been included in the Executive’s Initial Budget Proposition spread over three years. 

The officer had concluded that a customer contact strategy was appropriate for this Council and requested that the Executive confirmed this and recommended it to Council in order that work could proceed on the detailed implementation plan. 

The Executive considered that a customer contact strategy, which continued to implement the Local Services Point Stage 2 customer contact centre under a “broad and shallow” strategy approach, was warranted by the non-cashable benefits achievable and by the modest cash savings that were likely to accrue. 

R E C O M M E N D E D 

that the Customer Contact Strategy, as set out in Appendix A to these minutes, be adopted.