Customer Management Strategy
(2014-2017)
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Foreword
As technology improves, the demand for Council services to be available online and
accessible 24/7 will increase as our customers choose to move away from more
traditional contact channels, especially for the easier transactions and to find
information.
This document outlines the Council’s plans for customer services and how this will be
developed to ensure fairness and to meet the demands of a more digital age. The
document will not just act as overarching strategy; it also contains a deliverable action
plan and timescales.
At a time when local government is facing some of the most severe budget restrictions
it has ever seen, it is more important than ever that we put the customer at the heart of
everything we do. We need to concentrate our limited resources into providing
services that our customers need and want, and to understand how well our services
are working. We can only do this by listening to customer feedback and using valuable
information to help us improve and ultimately deliver better services that provide good
value for money.
This strategy, which is the result of collaborative effort across the Council’s
departments, provides a vision and direction to show how the Council can take
advantage of new technology to communicate and deliver quality services to our
customers alongside consistent high quality service standards across all our teams.
Our ambition is for North Norfolk to be an even greater district of opportunity and we
very much welcome the intent of matching that ambition with the opportunities
excellent customer service brings to help individuals, businesses and communities
achieve their full potential, in their work, their education, at home and in their social life.
Sheila Oxtoby
Chief Executive Officer
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Russell Wright
Cabinet Member
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Table of Contents
1
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1.1
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1.2
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1.3
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1.1
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2
Executive Summary ......................................................................................... 4
3
Introduction ...................................................................................................... 6
4
The Customer Management Vision and Strategic Themes ............................... 8
5
Key Drivers and Work Themes......................................................................... 9
6
Analysis of the Current Position ..................................................................... 10
7
Future Development ....................................................................................... 12
7.1
Objectives....................................................................................... 12
7.2
Culture Change ............................................................................... 13
7.3
Managing Customer Contact ............................................................ 14
7.3.1
Right Place First Time ............................................................ 14
7.3.2
Reduce the volume of Avoidable Contact ................................. 14
7.4
Channel Shift and the Customer Management Delivery Model ............. 15
7.5
Customer Insight ............................................................................. 18
8
Actions and Risks........................................................................................... 19
9
Main Risks ..................................................................................................... 21
Figure 1 – Channel Effectiveness ............................................................................ 16
Table 1 – High Level Action Plan............................................................................. 21
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2
Executive Summary
This document outlines the Customer Management Strategy 2014-17 for North
Norfolk District Council (NNDC). It is aimed at providing: a framework for customer
services improvements and changes within the Council; an update for the members
and staff on the current state of customer services and our priorities and vision for
the future.
This strategy serves to link Customer Service developments into the Council’s overall
objectives and detail the governance arrangements underpinning further investment
in Customer Service. This will support the Council’s provision of excellent customer
service and a Channel shift in customer service provision i.e. moving more simple
transactional processes onto our website and into our front office customer services
team. Full background information and supporting documentation can be found in the
separate Background Information document.
The Council is keen on driving forward an agenda of business transformation and
organisational change, which helps us to continually improve. Projects will be
implemented that enable us to:
improve our services
reduce the costs of operations
increase value for money
continue to deliver excellent service
This strategy supports these objectives and forms the basis for Business
Transformation Programme Customer Improvement work stream.
This strategy includes both short and longer-term strategic principles, developments
and projects that will allow us to plan specific steps to achieve our aims and goals.
Some of the key risks that could impact the successful delivery of the strategy have
also been identified in this document:
Inadequate funding for customer services improvements.
Lack of adequate protection of our sensitive and personal information.
Poorly business cases not able to withstand the pressures of Central
Government cutbacks.
Lack of resources to support customer services changes.
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Ineffective planning and preparation.
Insufficient support from staff and customers to adopt new ways of working.
In summary, this strategy will ensure that the Council:
Has a consistent level of great customer service and delivery developing our
customer management culture
Enables customer to access NNDC, how and when they want
Enables NNDC to gather greater customer insight and use this insight to
deliver continuous improvement.
Ensures that we recruit and retain the right staff and those staff have the right
training and development in good customer services practices
Ensures the Council continues to deliver excellent value for money to our
Citizens, local businesses and visitors
Has a roadmap for the changes our customers will see and how key phases
of the Customer Management strategy could be implemented
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3
Introduction
This document outlines the Customer Management Strategy 2013-16 for North
Norfolk District Council (NNDC). It is aimed at providing: a framework for customer
services improvements and changes within the Council; an update for the members
and staff on the current state of customer services and our priorities and vision for
the future.
This strategy serves to link Customer Service developments into the Council’s overall
objectives and detail the governance arrangements underpinning further investment
in Customer Service. This will support the Council’s provision of excellent customer
service and a Channel shift in customer service provision i.e. moving more simple
transactional processes onto our website and into our front office customer services
team.
The Council is keen on driving forward an agenda of business transformation and
organisational change, which helps us to continue to improve. Projects will be
implemented that enable us to:
improve our services
reduce the costs of operations
increase value for money
continue to deliver excellent service
This strategy supports these objectives and forms the basis for Business
Transformation Programme Customer Improvement work stream.
This strategy includes both short and longer-term strategic principles, developments
and projects which will allow us to plan specific steps to achieve our aims and goals.
Some of the key risks that could impact the successful delivery of the strategy have
also been identified in this document:
Inadequate funding for customer services improvements
Lack of adequate protection of our sensitive and personal information
Poorly developed business cases not able to withstand the pressures of
Central
Government cutbacks
Lack of resources to support customer services changes
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Ineffective planning and preparation
Insufficient support from staff and customers to adopt new ways of working
In summary, this strategy will ensure that the Council:
Has a consistent level of great customer service and delivery developing our
customer management culture
Enables customer to access NNDC, how and when they want
Enables NNDC to gather greater customer insight and use this insight to
deliver continuous improvement.
Ensures that we recruit and retain the right staff and those staff have the right
training and development in good customer services practices
Ensures the Council continues to deliver excellent value for money to our
Citizens, local businesses and visitors
Has a roadmap for the changes our customers will see and how key phases
of the Customer Management strategy could be implemented
In preparation for the development of the NNDC Customer Management Strategy, a
thorough consultation exercise was undertaken with NNDC services representatives
and management to identify their future business requirements.
A programme of research was also been completed to establish the current best
practice with Customer Management in both the private and public sector.
This Strategy is designed to plot NNDC’s course to achieve successful delivery of
tomorrow’s modern public services.
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4
The Customer Management Vision and Strategic Themes
The Customer Management Strategy sets out our ambition to be an organisation with
the ‘customer at the heart of everything we do’.
The strategy focus is not limited solely to customers from outside our organisation or
to the services that undertake front line roles in dealing with customers. The strategy
applies to all staff and services within our organisation even when the predominant
function of the service is seen as supporting the organisation.
Our definition of a customer is anyone who uses Council services whether voluntary
or mandatory.
Our definition of customer services is the experience the customer has at point of
contact with us.
We want to be a council where the customer knows what we offer, can get what they
want when they want it and can tell us what they think.
We want to be a council that continually uses customer feedback and insight to
deliver improved services.
The Customer Management Strategy considers how the council will respond to the
needs and wants of our customers from their perspective by providing mechanisms
that will:
support service improvement and decision making
improve access to the council, its services and the services of partners; and
inform and communicate with residents in the right ways
We recognise that customers want their enquiries resolved first time. They also
expect the information and advice they are given to be correct; they want to be
treated well; they want us to know who they are and use what we know about them
properly; they want a choice of access channels; they want us to work with partners if
this provides better services and/or reduces the cost of service provision; and they
want a say in how we do all of that.
We need to ensure that we reflect on local needs, recognising the unique nature of
our communities and the individuals within them.
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The Customer Management vision is to:’
‘To be a council that delivers high quality services which meet our customers
changing needs’
The following key themes which will help us to achieve this vision:
Easy to access services / choice of delivery
o Right place / first time
o Reducing avoidable contact
Managing channel shift – moving from more expensive contact channels
(face to face) to cheaper channels (web self service)
Achieving the Customer Service Excellence Standard
Re-launch the NNDC Customer Charter
Driving culture change
Continual improvement initiatives
On-going training and development of our staff
Reviewing and learning from Customer Feedback and Insight
The customer services delivery model within this strategy outlines how customer
services delivery channels link together and how they will be developed in the
coming three years. The outcomes for our customers and NNDC at the end of the
three years will be:
Improved, more convenient and accessible services for our customers.
Increased uptake of services by many sectors of the community utilising our
self-service facilities i.e. website and automated phone.
More effective use of resources for NNDC by directing customers to the most
efficient ways of accessing services.
Greater voice in shaping our services.
5
Key Drivers and Work Themes
Key Drivers for the Customer Management Strategy are:
Efficiency and Value for Money
 Enabling more simple transactional service activities to move from back
office teams to Customer Services allowing the back office staff to service
more complex transactions.
 Enable more of our simple transactions to move to web self-service or
automated telephone handling thus increasing customer choice and
access.
 Greater use of electronic workflow and document management with a
drive for a paperless office.
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Ambitions in our Corporate Plan
 Continuously improve our services.
 Community engagement and consultation.
 Improved access to our services.
The Customer Management Strategy covers three main areas:
Culture - Defining, delivering and demonstrating a Customer Management
culture consistently across the Council in all our service teams. Includes the
drive for continual improvement, achieving the Customer Excellence
accreditation and the on-going training and development of our staff.
Channel Shift - Achieving channel shift of customer contact from more
expensive channels such as face to face to cheaper contact channels. We will
maximise the provision of simple transactional services that can be completed
by customers online.
Customer Insight - We will use customer insight (customer feedback,
consultation, analysis and research) to design and change services removing
unnecessary steps in our processes thereby increasing customer satisfaction
and improving efficiency of our services.
6
Analysis of the Current Position
The following summarises the current state of Customer Management provision at
NNDC today:
Consistency of Service and Culture

We are achieving 90% customer satisfaction in customer surveys.

We have 700,000 customer contacts per annum and only 300 complaints.

Feedback from a recent staff focus exercise shows that staff are proud of
the level of customer service that they deliver.

We want to improve on internal communications so staff are fully informed

Although we have some measurements on the standard of service delivery,
we acknowledge that this is an area that we want to improve upon.

We want to improve upon the consistency of our service delivery, so that
regardless of the contact channel used or the member of staff the customer
speaks to, the delivery and message are consistent. We currently conduct
customer surveys but acknowledge that we need to improve our customer
insight which is so important when redesigning and improving services.
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Accessibility

Sitemorse evaluations on our webpages rank us in Q1 of 2013 as 26 out of
428. This evaluation considers accessibility, function, ease of use, and
quality of web page coding.

Although we have some transactional capability on our website we
recognise that we need to develop and improve upon this giving customers
choice and often a cheaper method of contact.

We know from customer feedback that at times it is difficult to contact
people/departments. We will address this with our Customer Charter and
improved telephony.
Day to Day Service Provision

Our reception area in Cromer will shortly be undergoing a redesign and
refurbishment which will greatly improve access and service delivery to
customers and address health and safety issues for staff.

We have multi-skilled Customer Service staff that have a positive ‘can do’
attitude.

We recognise that although training is carried out, that a formal, structured
and on-going training plan would better suit our needs.

We recognise that business process reviews and customer journey mapping
will enable us to make our processes more efficient and cost effective.
Technology

We recognise that our aged telephony system cannot support channel shift
and lacks the functionality required to embrace new ways of interacting with
customers.
 We cannot track customer contacts so investment in a Customer Information
system will enhance our ability to manage customer contacts. We recognise
the need to invest in website and integration tools which deliver the benefits
from channel shift.
Governance

We set up the Customer Services Improvement Board with Strategic
Director sponsorship to drive strategy implementation and to prioritise and
track improvements.

We will set up a Web Working Group to assess customer transaction needs
and to set priorities on web development to meet these needs.
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7
7.1
Future Development
Objectives
Our objectives going forward for Customer Management are:
To ensure we make effective and appropriate use of technology as outlined in
our IT strategy.
To achieve channel shift moving customers from more expensive to cheaper
contacts points with the Council whilst increasing choice of access to the
Council.
To ensure we continue to train and develop our staff.
To continuously improve our day to day service prioritising the move of those
transactions that sit better in a front facing customer services team.
To ensure we use customer insight to continuously improve, reduce costs and
prioritise the use of resources.
To ensure the delivery of good governance of our change projects and
priorities to deliver the vision of Customer Management.
We will deliver these objectives by implementing changes to the organisation through
leadership; communication and engagement; investment in technology; process
reviews; training and development; and change projects.
The approach to shaping the future is discussed in more detail below.
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7.2
Culture Change
Our focus on culture change is recognition that whilst we get good feedback in our
Customer Satisfaction survey we cannot be complacent and it is an area where there
is a need to have a focus of continuous improvement.
To deliver the customer management culture improvements that the Customer
Management strategy sets out to achieve we will:
Lead from the top, re-enforcing messages and rewarding behaviour that
demonstrates excellent internal and external customer services.
Implement the UK Government Customer Service Excellence Standard.
Provide the resources to facilitate a Council wide change management process
review under the banner of the Business Transformation Programme.
Deliver service quality beyond a client’s expectation by fixing things quickly
when we fail, and providing added value with our services when we have a
contact with our customers e.g. delivering a next day appointment for a service
whenever this is possible.
Transforming the organisation so that everyone is customer responsive and
empowered to act. This will be delivered through our communication, job
design and review and transformation of all our key Customer Service
processes.
We will design our measures of customer satisfaction in co-production with our
customers and employees so that we align measures.
We will invest in training all our managers and staff to deliver excellent
customer service.
Ensure that all staff manage any customer problem they are dealing with and
take ownership to see it through to resolution wherever possible.
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7.3
Managing Customer Contact
7.3.1 Right Place First Time
We aim to resolve a greater proportion of contacts quickly, and at the initial point of
contact, by introducing professional customer service approaches and common
standards that are supported by efficient systems and procedures.
A standardised, corporate approach to contact management in which simple
customer contacts are dealt with by the frontline (website/call centre/reception)
leaving only complex enquiries, applications and on-going case work to be
dealt with by the back office.
Establish clearly signposted contact points for customers that are aligned with
supporting business processes.
Monitor and record access volumes, customer satisfaction and cost across all
channels in order to drive continuous improvement and show change
(management information).
Ensure that all marketing/promotional media published in relation to a specific
customer task complement each other and work in harmony to engage and
inform the customer. (All signs pointing in the same direction promoting the use
of our preferred contact point.)
7.3.2 Reduce the volume of Avoidable Contact
We aim to reduce situations where the customer has to unnecessarily contact the
council, perhaps because no information was available, or it was of poor quality, or a
service was not delivered as expected.
There are five main reasons for avoidable contact:
1.
Unnecessary clarification required – Quality of Communications / Access
Any query received as a result of a previous contact during which the council
was not able to provide the necessary information or service, e.g. a phone call
resulting from online service being unavailable or inadequate information on the
website, or an e-mail asking for clarification following a council letter, or other
communications material which is poorly worded or has presented incomplete,
inaccurate or out-of-date information.
2.
Poor signposting / call transfer
The customer rings the wrong number because contact points are not clearly
advertised, or the customer is transferred to the incorrect service.
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3.
Repeat contact
The customer has to provide the same information a number of times in order to
carry out transactions with the council and its partners, e.g. a customer being
asked to provide information about a change of address to multiple parts of the
council.
4.
Unnecessary progress-chasing
The customers are asking for reassurance or making other unnecessary service
delivery follow-ups. This category includes instances where we have not
delivered the service as promised right first time, so the customer needs to
contact us again.
5.
Premature closure
There is repeat contact after premature closure of a previous contact.
7.4
Channel Shift and the Customer Management Delivery Model
There is a generally accepted model for effectiveness of the major channels of
contact available today as shown below:
Figure 1: Channel Effectiveness
We will focus on moving customer contacts and transactions from more expensive
options (telephone, face to face contact, letter) to less expensive options (self-service
on the web, self-service through automatic voice recognition systems, and through
the use of SMS on mobile phones) - effectively by moving from services which
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require staff to be involved to those which do not. It costs us £0.33 each time a
customer uses our website to get information, report a problem or ask for a service.
This rises to £1.79 if they phone, email or write to us and £6.71 if they visit us. The
website also has the benefits of being available at any time, every day and there are
no queues so it is quick to use. (These figures are taken from the Socitm
benchmarking exercise undertaken this year and are calculated using our overhead
costs / number of particular transactions.)
We want to empower customers to be able to carry out transactions online, whenever
they want 24/7 and without the need for a phone call or calling into the office. It is
common these days for customers to carry out many different types of transactions
online in other areas of their life and we want our customers to have the choice to
interact with us in this manner also.
We can achieve Channel shift by:
Letting the Customer know about other ways of accessing services e.g. if they
visit us face to face one of our greeters can assist them to find information on
our website and complete the relevant web form.
By making sure that services are available through appropriate and easy to use
access channels.
By ensuring that customers have confidence that the same level of service is
available through each channel and that requests are dealt with consistently.
By ensuring that customers receive appropriate and timely feedback and
confirmation that their request has been received. This is particularly important
with self-service channels e.g. in online transactions.
The key factors that influence transition of customers to new channels:
1. Detail – the deliberate design of the customer access for each type of
service, bearing in mind the level of human interaction required and the
needs of the targeted customer base.
2. Fluidity – the constant reviewing of the effectiveness of customer access for
each type of contact bearing in mind changing technologies, channel
hopping and changing customer habits.
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3. Simplicity – the optimum channels for the organisation should be the
easiest to use for the customer to drive a channel shift in customer
behaviour.
4. Inclusion – no group should be denied access to a service because of
disability, language or cost of access channel.
5. Cost effectiveness – Finding ways in which to deliver services effectively
but at a lower cost will be increasingly important
Currently we have 95% of transactions completed via a mediated channel. We
expect to see a further shift between mediated and non-mediated channels over the
next 3 years. SOCITM research points to other local councils already achieving 2065% of transactions via self-service
In order for the delivery model to work efficiently each customer access channel must
be developed appropriately. Outlined below is a development plan for each of our
channels.
End to End Processes - Process reviews across all service areas and
channels to remove avoidable contacts.
Website – full redesign, new Content Management System, electronic web
forms. Web Integration tools, additional web skills, marketing and mediation
support.
Telephone – maximise transactions moved. Process reviews, new contact
management system, customer information system and mediation support.
Face to Face – Self-service terminals across the district, greeters to mediate
customers to web.
Home visits – provide mobile technology to staff and route planning
optimisation. Look for opportunities to mediate customers to alternative
channels for future.
Correspondence – consistency and standards for communication through
training, templates etc. Scanning letters to enable paperless offices, driving
management of actions against correspondence using electronic workflow.
Social Media and Third Party Mobile Sites – review policy and look at
opportunities to increase use of social media in areas such as: supporting
engagement in social democracy. Promoting culture events, getting customer
insight, supporting community cohesion.
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Avoidable contact – Unnecessary clarification, poor signposting, call
transfer/repeat contact, poor sign-posting and call transfer, unnecessary
progress chasing and premature closure.
7.5
Customer Insight
Customer insight is understanding our customers based on their behaviour,
experiences, beliefs, needs or desires. It is important so that we are better able to
meet their needs which should produce higher satisfaction and lower costs through
reducing avoidable or unnecessary demand. Customer Insight will be essential to
deliver channel shift as illustrated in the Customer Management Model (see figure 1
above)
We can achieve customer insight by using:
External data – Census, segmentation tools (e.g. Mosaic or Acorn).
Our own measurement data from systems (KPI’s).
Surveys and Consultation.
Compliments and Complaints.
Feedback from front facing staff.
Customer journey mapping and focus groups.
Local media and Social Media.
We will use our customer insight to understand changes to we need to make to our
service, our communications and processes.
We will embed our approach to using customer insight into our future processes and
procedures for service development.
We will also use Customer Insight to deliver continuous improvement in our services
and evidence channel shift. Using the combined measures of customer satisfaction,
channel shift changes and costs reductions through channel shift are essential to
ensure that we can achieve savings but not at the expense of good customer service
and satisfaction.
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8
Actions and Risks
8.1 Work Themes
The table below details some of the main activities required to deliver the Customer Management Strategy.
Work Themes
Culture
 Customer Service Excellence Standard
Within 12 mths
12-24 mths
24-26 mths
Impact
H
 implement standards and practices within 12 months for Customer
Services team.
 gain accreditation within 24 months for Customer Services team
 back office areas to implement standards and work towards
accreditation
 Revise and promote Customer Charter; publicise via internal and external
communication plan.
 Develop and deliver formal, structured on-going training for Customer
Service facing staff
Channel Shift
 Set up and agree membership of Web Working Group.
 Review and develop functionality of website.
 Review and Procure Intranet and Internet Content Management (covered
under the IT Strategy).
 E-forms software procurement and implementation (covered under IT
Strategy)
Customer Insight
 Customer Insight – Invest and utilise Segmentation tools and analytics and
social networking
 Set up mystery shopping groups.
 Further development of complaints management to include route cause
analysis.
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H
M
H
H
H
H
H
M
M
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Work Themes
Within 12 mths
Business Process Reviews
 Business Process Reviews – end to end understanding of Customer
Transactions to remove duplications and unavoidable contacts.
 Review of Back office functions to design and move non complex
transactions to phone and web.
 Review requirements to move resource from back office to Customer
Services following process review.
Technology Investment (all covered under the IT Strategy)
Impact
L
H
H
M
 Procure and Implement Customer Information System
 Review Requirements and then Procure and Implement Management Information
System
Procure and Implement EDRMS/Workflow licences and training
H
Table 1 – High Level Action Plan
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24-26 mths
H
M
 Procure and implement new Telephony

12-24 mths
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9
Main Risks
The main risks that are likely to impact the successful delivery of the Customer Management Strategy
are:
1. Inadequate funding for customer services improvements – Mitigate through robust and
adequate business cases.
2. Lack of adequate protection of our sensitive and personal information - Mitigate through
good training for staff and updated polices.
3. Poorly developed business cases not able to withstand the pressures of Central
Government cutbacks - Mitigate through robust and adequate business cases.
4. Lack of resources to support customer service changes – Mitigate through strong
leadership investing up front to enable transition to Channel shift.
5. Ineffective planning and preparation – Mitigate through applying good project and
programme management planning with dedicated project management resource.
6. Insufficient support from staff and customers to adopt new ways of working – Mitigate
through good communication and engagement planning and execution with staff and
customers.
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