However,West Sussex County Council, in a unique partnership with seven borough and district councils, and a growing number of town and parish councils, Sussex Police and the NHS, has overcome both these challenges. Together, the organisations are breaking ground and are using Lagan’s Frontline CRM solution to underpin the development of a seamless information service for the citizens across West Sussex.
West Sussex County Council recognised back in the early 1990s, that the existing processes for providing customer services were inefficient, ineffective and did not provide for its citizens. In order to start addressing this, the organisation decided to embark on a project that would join-up its constituent organisations, comprising seven borough councils, Sussex Police and the NHS.
It formed a network of 18 Help Points, scattered throughout the county, which allows West Sussex to deal with every enquiry by the public about any local government service in the area. Located in town halls, libraries, leisure centres as well as council offices the aim of these Help Points is to act as a single point of contact for all matters pertaining to Local Government or Health, irrespective of which authority is responsible for the service. With more than 100 trained staff, West Sussex now answers up to 2000 queries a day from its citizens dealing with everything from the next refuse collection, to planning permission rules and how to change doctors.
“Our Help Points currently sit at the core of our citizen information service, providing the personal touch as well as linking the council services”, explains Stephen Gray, West Sussex Accessible Services Partnership Organiser. “No-one in the county is further than 5 miles away from a Help Point. If you work in Crawley and live in Shoreham you can report issues local to work or home and be sure that they will be dealt with.”
The concept of Help Points has been established for over 14 years, however West Sussex identified that, with the increase in digital and electronic document usage, there was a huge opportunity to improve the quality of service offered as well as extend and make access to information even easier for both staff and citizens. Although the service is successful and popular, finding the correct information often relied on individual staff knowledge. “The partnership established between the authorities is unique and allows us to offer a comprehensive one-stop shop service across the county”, explains Jennifer Elwood, the Help Point Manager. “We wanted to capitalise further on the partnership benefits, providing a truly integrated and joined up system, with a seamless interface into the mass of information we possess. Our aim is to be able to handle any query presented by the public about our services and resolve the Government target of 80%, or more, of enquiries first time. In practice we are achieving well over 90%”
Recognising that CRM technologies offered the opportunity to improve these customer services and that the deployment of a partnership CRM solution would significantly increase the benefits to staff and the public, West Sussex embarked on a procurement process to find the best solution to meet their current and future needs. A shortlist of three CRM software products, from an initial list of eight, was drawn up for consideration by the partnership. Lagan’s Frontline CRM solution was chosen for its versatility – the individual authorities could configure and customise the solution to meet their specific requirements, while still enabling information exchange between partners.
A further justification for choosing a CRM solution was so that the local authorities could respond positively to e-government initiatives from Central Government, demonstrating their commitment to providing joined-up services and central reporting. “Many of the Central Government requirements for reporting imply the use of a CRM system, and without one you really can’t say ‘yes’ to a fully joined-up system”, says Gray.
As many of the Help Point staff work part-time, West Sussex is keen to ensure that the service offered is of a consistent, high standard. The Lagan Frontline CRM application allows information to be readily available by providing a standardised method for accessing the same information banks. “The CRM system isn’t about cost savings, it’s about easier access to more information so that our staff can provide an even higher level of service”, states Gray.
With over 50 back office systems throughout the county feeding the Frontline application, the scale and scope of the West Sussex content is continually growing. More than 1500 queues of information have already been created and the number of scripts of potential requests for information is increasing. “As the information held in the local web site and back-office systems that feeds the Frontline application gets richer, then so does our knowledge base and our ability to provide more detailed and comprehensive answers”, explains Gray.
West Sussex is breaking new ground, not only in the depth and quality of services it provides to its citizens, but also in the way it has developed a partnership approach to services. As a result it is pushing the Frontline system to new limits. “We couldn’t work across a partnership like this without both the politics and the technology in place”, says Gray.
One of the biggest advantages for the partnership is the way in which it has taken ownership of both the CRM project and the application, deriving enormous additional benefit by using the scripting engine to develop scenarios and scripts that allow information to be collated more readily. “We have six non-technical staff who are now creating very effective scripts within the application”, says Gray. “It’s this ease of use that allows the real users to become part of the development team. If they had to learn a programming language we simply wouldn’t have got the buy-in from staff.”
The Frontline system has been introduced gradually to staff in the Help Points, as a tool that may help them to do their job better. The Chichester Housing department has discovered that the system saves significant administration time – time that can now be spent on more home visits.
“Frontline enables us to achieve much more with the same resources”, states Gray. “With the information literally at their fingertips, Help Point staff are now spending longer talking to the public, rather than rummaging in files and looking for answers, and this is where the added quality comes in.”
Cultural resistance to the CRM system has been minimal. “Staff have really wanted to use CRM, rather than us having to impose it on them”, Gray explains. “At the end of the day, customer satisfaction is the Partnership’s measure of success – and that is something which is most tangible to the individuals who are in the coal-face.”
Moving forward, Frontline is seen as a platform for growth and development. A call centre has just been opened and plans are underway to develop a knowledge management system. West Sussex is also using the CRM system to ensure that it is prepared for the possible introduction of identity cards and e-business payments as part of the Government Connect authentication scheme.
“It’s the rich functionality in the application and speed and ease of deployment that is allowing us to move into new areas and provide more services for our citizens”, says Gray. “Frontline allows us to provide alternative channels to access local government services such as self service access through the web, as well as integrate more of our back end functions into the system. We may be pushing the technology, however with the knowledgeable support from the experts at Lagan and our own development team, we are achieving results that have surprised even ourselves.”
Joined up government requires a versatile front office system with seamless access to back office systems and a well integrated IT infrastructure. West Sussex has demonstrated how this can be achieved in a partnership and the enormous benefits for citizens that result.
“Our culture is one of putting the customer first – deploying the Frontline application has meant that we can all do our jobs better”, concludes Gray.
Quelle: Publictechnology, 16.03.2006
