Newport City Council has developed a 'one stop shop' customer service
model for Streetscene services that makes it simpler for customers to
engage with the council and is projected to generate potential savings
of up to £1.7M a year.
This new initiative has been achieved by
encouraging greater cooperation between departments, area based working
and the development of increased citizen engagement.
The new operating
model was launched in April 2011 and is already providing savings,
improved communication and a more 'joined up' way of working across the
Council.
The council's vision of providing a seamless customer service is
based on the principle that certain key services work best when
delivered together through one point of contact.
For Newport City Council, this initially involved the merger of
three departments - highways, grounds and countryside and transportation
and street cleansing into one team.
Customer contact with these three depart- ments now occurs through
the City Contact Centre who work closely with the Streetscene
service.
Streetscene services are integrated with online forms
solutions, Jadu XForms Professional (XFP) which captures data and is
integrated with the Council's Oracle CRM system.
This innovative
development enables an efficient and rapid service response and
simplifies the process of problem reporting through the use of images
and graphics.
Newport City Council's web site utilises an interactive web image to
visually represent every Streetscene service.
This means that customers
can click on the appropriate part of the image to access web content and
an electronic form (Jadu XFP) to report an issue, in addition to
'tradi- tional' navigation methods.
"We have created a Streetscene that includes a wide range of services - highway maintenance, waste collection, fly tipping, bulky items etc. The visualisation makes it simple for the public to report problems as they don't have to think about what a service might be called, they just 'point and click' and Streetscene takes you to the correct electronic form."
Andrew Morris, Head of Street- scene, Newport City Council
Customers just need to click on the image and they are automatically
linked to an online form that enables them to report a problem.
The ease
of use is encouraging increased use of internet facilities, reducing
the workload of the contact centre and as a result encouraging channel
shift.
Based on information collected to date Newport City Council
estimates that a 10% shift of Streetscene telephone callers to using the
web, generates a saving of £17k, whilst a shift of 20% from telephone
to the web will generate a £38K saving.
"Across the Council we dealt with 14,442 online transactions last year (10/11), an increase of 33% or 3553 transactions from the year before (09/10). In channel shift terms this would equate to a saving on telephony of over £18K"
Kit Wilson, Customer Services Manager, Newport City Council
Newport City Council's transforming access programme board has overseen
the development of the online channel services and to date, 21 services
have been delivered through the Streetscene service.
Current Streetscene services:
- Abandoned Cars
- Bin Collection
- Blocked Drains and gullies
- Bus stops and Shelters
- Dropped Kerbs or vehicle crossings
- Flooding
- Fly Tipping
- Graffiti
- Litter
- Traffic Lights
- Overhanging Trees
- Parking
- Parks
- Playgrounds
- Recycling
- Road Markings
- Skips
- Spills on road
- Street Lights
Newport City Council's immediate next steps are to increase the number
of online services available using the integrated Streetscene and Jadu
XFP solution with initial areas identified such as special collections,
recycling boxes and pothole defects, projected to rapidly deliver a
further £13K of savings.
Over the next 12 months the final structure and operations of
Streetscene will be developed with reviews of the highways maintenance,
refuse and recycling and car parking services.
These services will be
refined to achieve the council's budget savings for the Streetscene Area
and develop levels of service and performance that demonstrate real
service planning improvement.
These initiatives will contribute towards
the regeneration and revitalisation of the city centre; improve
communication with business and public link groups and ensures that the
council can deliver what the customers want.
