CHANGE MANAGEMENT TOOLKIT – GOVERNMENT
REPUTATION
Version:
Date:
Version 1.0 Final
March 2004
Author:
Martin Cahill, Luciano Batista, Manchester Business School
Purpose of Document:
The idea of improving the reputation of a local authority is intrinsic to CRM. However,
how many authorities have really thought about what reputation is, and whether and how
it can be improved? The business world has always thought about corporate reputation
and, as an original contribution to local government CRM, some general ideas are
presented that can be adapted by local authorities.
Copyright © 2004
Copyright of this document remains vested in the London Borough Tower Hamlets (LBTH), City of Salford (SCC), London Borough of Brent (LBB), Knowsley Metropolitan
Borough Council (KMBC), Hull City Council (HCC), London Borough of Newham (LBN).
ODPM, LBTH, SCC, LBB, KMBC, HCC & LBN make no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of
merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. ODPM, LBTH, SCC, LBB, KMBC, HCC & LBN shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or
consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance or use of this material.
Copyright © 2004
Copyright of these documents remains vested in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) and the authors. These
documents provided for use within local authorities and the public sector free of charge and ‘as is’ and ‘as seen’. These products
may not be re-used or re-sold for profit or commercial gain, nor used as the basis for any consultancy service. The products
below are protected by copyright laws.
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Table of Contents
1
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 4
1.1
1.2
READER ................................................................................................................................ 4
RELATED PRODUCTS & ADDITIONAL READING ......................................................................... 5
2
WHAT IS REPUTATION? ........................................................................................................... 6
3
CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSPECTIVE...................................................................................... 9
3.1
3.2
3.3
STAKEHOLDER CONTACT – FINDING THE MEASURES THAT COUNT ............................................. 9
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT ............................................................................. 11
ALIGNING IMAGE AND IDENTITY THROUGH CRM ..................................................................... 17
4
A MACRO PERSPECTIVE ........................................................................................................ 22
5
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 26
5.1
5.2
INTEGRATION OF PERSPECTIVES ........................................................................................... 26
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................... 27
ANNEXE 1.
AUTHORS, CONTRIBUTORS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ERROR! BOOKMARK
NOT DEFINED.
ANNEXE 2.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS .......................................................................................... 29
ANNEXE 3.
METADATA .................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
ANNEXE 4.
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 30
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1 INTRODUCTION
Many people would agree that all nations, regions and governments have different
reputations and they might also agree that it is beneficial to have an excellent reputation.
Yet, how many local councils have really thought about what reputation is, and whether and
how it can be improved? Beyond the formal groundwork section ‘what is reputation?' this
document considers the enhancement of reputation from two critical viewpoints.
Firstly, reputation can be looked upon from a customer1 service perspective. This focuses
upon the opportunities presented by information and communications technology, in
particular CRM (Customer Relationship Management), to shift the deep-seated cultural
negative perceptions of some local councils (i.e. arguments that they are remote, wasteful,
under-performing and inefficient bureaucracies).
What can be done about this negativity? Service improvement is obviously paramount, but
might the positive enhancement of reputation be an essential accompaniment to service
improvement? Secondly, moving beyond this customer service perspective, this document
considers reputation from a macro perspective. This section understands the high demands
put on the quality of the working and living environment, and that a council must improve
the attractiveness of its locality as a place for companies to locate, for individuals to live in,
and for tourists to visit.
The crux of this document is an amalgamation of these viewpoints that promotes the idea
that an excellent reputation will be best achieved through integrating and working between
the service and macro perspective. In this regard, it is shown that strategy-led CRM is more
able to ‘enhance’ reputation than merely an ad hoc implementation. An executive summary
develops a ‘how to’ overview and a list of checkpoints.
1.1
READER
This document is intended for readership across two critical viewpoints i.e. a customer
service perspective and an over-arching strategic viewpoint:
1. CRM Manager: An individual who is empowered to deliver a better service to local
residents through a CRM initiative.
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2. Director: An individual concerned with a wider outlook who needs to know how CRM
ties into the local authority’s strategic policy.
By reading this report the reader should be able answer the following questions:
1. What exactly is reputation and how can it be influenced?
2. Should local government be concerned about reputation?
3. How can local government enhance reputation through CRM?
1.2
RELATED PRODUCTS & ADDITIONAL READING
This document should be read in conjunction with the following documents:

S3.1 Leadership: This product provides useful advice on how to move from a
bureaucratic culture to an adaptive culture. This is relevant because an adaptive
culture pays close reference to customer satisfaction and service quality, hence
reputation.

S3.1 Innovation: This product is particularly relevant to reputation because
innovation has the ability to enhance and often radically change reputation. It is
understood that those local authorities with a good reputation might develop a
‘sustaining’ CRM innovation. This might be the implementation of an enhanced call
handling service in response to complaints by customers and staff about time taken
to answer and respond to calls. However, those authorities that have numerous
complaints and a poor CPA report might consider a disruptive innovation, whereby
the CRM initiative is likely to need its own place in the organisational structure – a
radical change to enhance reputation.

S3.1 Impact Evaluation: This product highlights the importance of identifying
stakeholder values in a CRM implementation. The only way to begin to understand
the values of groups of people is to ask them. With this in mind the CRM initiative
needs to build in employee and customer feedback. Only by knowing what is
important to stakeholders can we accurately determine and measure the success of
a CRM programme. The development of such feedback mechanisms and metric
systems is discussed within this government reputation document, but the impact
evaluation document provides a very real tool to apply in your local authority.
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2 WHAT IS REPUTATION?
Hewlett Packard - “It's about your reputation, not ours”
If you’ve recently picked up a national newspaper or IT magazine you may have noticed
that Hewlett Packard is currently marketing their business on ‘reputation’. They believe
their reputation for quality, reliability and simple network connectivity, can enhance their
customers’ reputation if they are using a Hewlett Packard Product. Their marketing term
- “It’s about your reputation, not ours”, clearly seeks to deliver this message for
differentiation and competitive advantage.
Barcelona City Council – “Enhancing reputation through online relationship
management”
Barcelona City Council has clearly sought to identify itself with the overall image of
Barcelona. Barcelona’s reputation as a cultural epicentre has been woven into the
offerings of the city council’s website (http://www.bcn.es/english/ihome.htm)*. The site
appeals to a wide audience, including city residents (across demographics i.e. children,
teens, and elderly), tourists and businesses. By providing an advanced information
resource, accessible to the myriad of city stakeholders, Barcelona City Council is
effectively managing all their relationships. As you will see throughout this document,
customer relationship management goes a long way towards enhancing reputation.
*Such examples of combining council services with the city or regional website are
sporadic but to all outward appearances it has many positive benefits to both the
reputation of the city or region and the local authority.
Is the public service stuck with a negative reputation? Or can that reputation be enhanced
through service improvement and a positive identification? The challenge might not just be
negativity i.e. the starting point may be from a zero base; local government customers
might not view themselves as having a relationship of any kind with their council. What role
might CRM play in this? How might reputation serve political and democratic ends? These
questions can be raised simply by thinking about reputation itself.
Reputation can be defined as:

an overall quality or character as seen or judged by customers in general
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
a recognition by customers of some characteristic or ability

a place in public esteem or regard: good name or adversely a poor name
Using this definition it can be seen that local government reputation is built up from those
things a council does i.e. the services it offers and more importantly how good it is at
offering those services. In this regard a good reputation has to be earned from the ongoing
delivery of a council’s core service functions. However, reputation can be enhanced through
better management of the emotional attachment that stakeholders have with the local
council. What exactly does this mean?
Figure 1 – The Reputation Chain2, observed from a commercial study, provides clarity to
this question. The two most important stakeholders are customer-facing employees and
customers. At the heart of the chain is the brand providing the emotional attachment that
customers and customer-facing employees have with the local council and its services. It
follows that the identity of a council to a customer-facing employee should be compatible
with the council image recognised by the customer, for reputation to improve. Image and
identity must be harmonised.
Satisfaction
Employee
View
THE
BRAND
Customer
View
Retention
Satisfaction
Affinity/ Loyalty
Identity
Image
Improved City/
Region
Figure 1: The Reputation Chain
In order to build this mutuality between customers and customer-facing employees, the
service function of a local council needs to be considered. This is where the inherent link to
CRM begins. This mutuality needs to be developed and enhanced both through CRM
technologies and softer service-centre approaches, including team management. The
concept of local authority branding at a higher level, for example, a regional strategic
initiative also needs to be considered.
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From those issues above, two critical points emerge and this document is structured
accordingly; i.e.

we are seeking to develop mutuality in the customer and customer-facing employee
relationship; this will unify image and identity – see Section 3.

the idea of brand can be used to bring these different perspectives together – see
Section 4.
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3 CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSPECTIVE
3.1
STAKEHOLDER CONTACT – FINDING THE MEASURES THAT COUNT
Building relationships with customers is an inherent aspect of governmental activity.
Individuals and businesses have a whole-life relationship with government interacting with a
broad range of public agencies and departments in many different circumstances from birth
to death. The reputation chain (section 2 - figure 1) showed that the two most important
stakeholder groups for government are customers and customer-facing employees.
Given this close connection it is intuitively attractive to believe that if employees are
satisfied, then customers will be too. This seems to be what the model suggests. However
there must be some rational reason for this to be so, a connection between the two. A key
part of this is to balance the metrics across the customer and customer-facing employee
relationship.
If the goals that matter to the customer also matter to the customer-facing employee, it is
much more likely to unify the relationship. From this simple realisation, a supportive and
constructive approach to performance measurement at the public interface can be built.
Performance measures can be selected and prioritised that matter both to the customers
and the customer-facing employees.
As simple as this idea is, it is also potentially profound. If measures are used both to unify
the customer and customer-facing employee relationship, and also to lift employee
satisfaction, then the organisation will find that it is very effectively blowing positive energy
into this critical business interface.
This can be done if the employees are empowered to identify the measures that count. The
process might start by asking staff to document what they know to be important to
customers, and to allow them to build their own metrics and initiatives based on this
understanding (see Surrey County Council case study – “Calming the Blizzard”). Once such
metrics and initiatives are put in place then employees should be positive about
communicating these back to the public.
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Improvement of
input channels
Improvement of
output channels
1. Obtain citizen
feedback
3. Communicate those
improvements back to
the public
2. Act on citizen
feedback to make
those improvements
Consideration of
citizens opinions in
decision making
Figure 2: Effectively hearing from the public
In essence this mechanism is a two-sided cyclical process (figure 2 – effectively hearing
from the public, presents a diagrammatical understanding) that leads us to the following
points:

develop a customer focus orientation by promoting a customer voice and
incorporating the voice of the customer into the decision-making processes3

provide more efficient and effective communication with the public by disseminating
what government does and how it serves the interests of the public. This provides
an opportunity for local councils to overcome the infamous problem of ‘service
association’
Service Association
Through discussions with numerous local government leaders there is a strong agreement
that authorities never seem to get the credit for the myriad of services they provide; a
segment of council customers often ask “What do I actually get for my money?”. More
frustratingly when a service is good and goes right customers seem completely unaware of
the authorities overarching involvement. There is no question that service association is a
very real problem and it seems many would agree that it has a strong relationship to the
overall reputation of a local authority. CRM provides a real opportunity for a local authority
to promote their service offerings and achievements. By communicating improvements
back to the public, in particular improvements based on customer feedback, there is a real
chance to enhance reputation and shift the negative or zero-based cultural viewpoint
surrounding local government.
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Case example: Surrey County Council – “Calming the Blizzard”
There is no doubt that most organisations suffer from a blizzard of initiatives and performance
measures and local councils are no exception. Many initiatives and metrics are often top-down and
originate from management buzzwords of the week, most being susceptible to failure. It is not
surprising then that customer-facing employees are sometimes downbeat and lost in this blizzard.
And, if employees are downbeat, reputation cannot be expected to be enhanced through stakeholder
contact.
Surrey County Council has approached this problem from a bottom-up customer service perspective
but has also recognised the importance of a managerial viewpoint. This two-pronged approach can
be seen as follows:
1. Customer-facing employees pick the measures that matter to them based on customer
feedback. For example, did a customer get all the information required at the first point of
contact? Such metrics might include x, y, z, a1, b3.
2. Managers take a more holistic perspective tying the service centre into the council’s wider
strategic objectives. For example, has the call-centre actively promoted the council’s latest
initiative or simply what is the volume of transactions? Such metrics might include a1, b1, c2.
Surrey recognise that it is important to arrange inclusive monthly meetings to assess these metrics,
providing an opportunity to discuss what is important to customers, employees and managers.
Surrey has also been forward thinking in the wider management of customer-facing employees by
offering appropriate training and appraisals systems in line with the council’s strategy – “All the
techniques that make employees feel well treated”.
By empowering customer-facing employees to calm the initiative overload and set their own targets,
satisfaction levels for both employees and customers increases. The close stakeholder contact
essentially empowers the customers and customer-facing employees to identify where services are
improved.
* For further ideas developed in this case study see Impact Evaluation (Section 5 – How to Evaluate
Impact). This section asks staff, customers, and managers for their values, develops them into
metrics and assesses whether or not these values have been satisfied.
Source: Jenny Isaac – Surrey County Council
3.2
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Understanding that reputation can be enhanced through better management of the
interactions between customers and customer-facing employees, thoughts lead to the
adoption of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions. As well as improving
local government performance and minimising internal costs, CRM enables a closer
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relationships between customer-facing employees and customers, and it does this
regardless of the channel of interactions e.g. call-centre, web, mobile, email etc. By
boosting government accessibility and responsiveness (see case example: Pennsylvania)
the local government office directly enhances customer empowerment and engagement.
Case example: Pennsylvania
“Pennsylvania state is one of America’s e-government pioneers providing a host of online and
transactional services on a leading-edge government portal (http://www.state.pa.us/). Citizens and
businesses can pay taxes online, order birth certificates, renew vehicle licenses, enrol their children
in school, buy fishing licenses, read government decisions and local government news. The
Pennsylvania government homepage, the URL for which nobody can ever forget because it’s
stamped on all state license plates, has recorded more than one billion hits since its inception in
1995. Over the years, it has kept on adding new features and expanding what it offers. Pages are
continually updated to improve their appearance and user-friendliness, and technologies such as
video web casts and chat rooms have been used to make government events more accessible”.
Source: D. Holmes, eGov: e-business strategies for government, Nicholas Brealey Publishing
(2001).
There is good evidence from the local government sector that levels of customer
satisfaction increase after CRM adoption4. Over time, these improvements in both
satisfaction and reputation will generate stronger loyalty bonds between the local
government and its community i.e. customers and businesses5. Thinking laterally, the
Manchester United Football Club (MUFC) case study provides a clear understanding of the
potentially strong link between CRM, reputation and satisfaction. Although MUFC is a
commercial business it is worth considering from a public sector perspective as their
business is unlike most commercial companies in one critical way - loyalty:

typically, a commercial company has transactions and seeks to generate loyalty

a football club has loyalty, and seeks to generate transactions
A local authority is like the football club insofar as it starts from loyalty6.
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Case example: Manchester United PLC
“A man would change his wife more readily than his allegiance to a football team”
Whatever our own personal football allegiances, many of us would have to agree that Manchester
United has developed a reputation as one of the most successful sporting teams in the world – both
on the field and in its commercial operations; each acting as a catalyst for the other. As with any
forward thinking commercial organisation, MUFC has set strategies to develop and enhance its own
performance and reputation. Significantly, MUFC has identified customer relationship management
as a means to achieve this. The distinctive and most interesting point of difference between a MUFC
customer and that of any other commercial sector company, is the MUFC customer is more often
than not a supporter first, and a customer second. This loyalty is key: it is sometimes (presumably,
jokingly) said that “a man would change his wife more readily than his allegiance to a football team”.
With over 50 million of these loyal and committed supporters worldwide MUFC’s challenge is to
unlock the commercial potential represented by this fan base. In a nutshell converting more ‘fans to
customers’ or converting ‘loyalty to transactions’. To enable this MUFC have partnered with
Dimension Data to implement their CRM initiative. The project to date has collated over 1.9 million
fan records, so there is plenty still to go amongst their 53 million fans.
CRM challenge at ManU
ManU are uniquely challenged by already having fan loyalty but hope to build in transactions:
Customer
Loyalty
ICT Technology - CRM
££
Transactions
CRM challenge in the private sector
Most private sector firms are challenged with already having transactions but hope to build in
customer loyalty:
££
Transactions
ICT Technology - CRM
Customer
Loyalty
Source: Ben Hatton, Director of Manchester United, presenting at Manchester Business School on 1
Nov 2003. Further material can be found at www.manutd.com
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Having read the MUFC case study an apparent question needs answering. Does local
government face the same challenge as the private sector (transactions to loyalty) or the
challenge of MUFC (loyalty to transactions) or both? It could be argued that local
government indeed faces both.
Firstly, much like the private sector local government already has customer transactions in
place, especially taxes. Through the implementation of innovative practices and CRM, local
authorities have an opportunity to build in customer feedback and enhance customer loyalty
to their city or region. They will want to prove value and enhance reputation. CRM seems to
offer several potential contributions to this area. For example, it can be used to make
inferences over a large amount of data produced by different customer interactions,
generating knowledge about customers. This way, a local council will be able to target and
deliver tailored services according to the customers’ needs and preferences7. “A
constituent’s complaint on Friday can be the topic of debate in parliament the next
Thursday”8.
Secondly, much like MUFC, it could be assumed that a customer has a certain level of
loyalty to an area given their residency or business operations there. In this scenario, if
loyalty is high then local government could unlock the commercial potential represented by
their loyal customers through new and improved services at a chargeable rate. This might
seem like a sensitive issue i.e. should local authorities be looking at unlocking commercial
potential at all? The following examples explore this in more detail.
“A council has good sports facilities that are not used to capacity. At the same
time, the perception of local residents is that the council does little to address the
leisure needs of its citizens, and there is a general reputation that the locality is
“dull”. Could not CRM be used to connect the potential customers with the undercapacity, and thereby unlock commercial potential whilst driving up satisfaction
and reputation?”
“When implementing CRM (or any other large change or BPR – Business
Process Re-engineering – project) a local authority can make efficiency savings
by changing the way it works. These efficiency savings can be used to increase
resources available to customers or maybe even lower council taxation9”
Given the two challenges set out above, the question could be asked - which comes first?
To overcome this, local government needs to understand and begin to tackle both
challenges with the aim of developing a virtuous loop whereby the implementation of CRM
enhances customer reputation and loyalty alongside the effective management of
transactions – taxes. This is shown in figure 3 below– 'CRM challenge in the public sector'.
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Enhanced
council
reputation
and citizen
affinity
££
Council tax/
financial
management
CRM
CRM
Figure 3: CRM challenge in the public sector
But how does a service manager build this virtual loop into their CRM system? Referring to
Figure 4, it can be argued that CRM enables a series of facilities that allow a better
identification of customers’ needs and wants. It follows that organisations can proactively
anticipate their offers according to customers preferences, and can tax appropriately. This
idea is very similar to figure 2 - effectively hearing from the public, but it builds in CRM
technology and back-office re-engineering.
More often local authorities need to understand different community groups or segments as
well as the individual customer. In this regard, CRM technologies involve solutions such as
segmentation tools that can group customers according to established common patterns.
This way, local authorities can answer to a greater number of people at one time, aiming to
different groups or segments needs and preferences10. This is already illustrated in councils
such as West Lancashire who cater to a breadth of community groups from wealthy
segments to severely deprived areas.
2. CRM feedback
mechanism
3. Council strategy focuses on improving
youth development.
Council re-engineered
1. A young person states
that youth services are
inadequate
4. CRM services and taxation
built inline with strategy.
Service centre promotes: “Are
you aware of our youth
services?”
Figure 4: Start with the customer and work backwards
These technical notions and ideas of electronically serving the customer establish the
credibility of CRM as a tool of reputation building. However, the whole question of
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reputation is ultimately broader than CRM –- as shown by the case example of Great North
Eastern Railways (GNER).
GNER have a strategy-led programme for enhancing their reputation that relies less on
technology initiatives, but instead puts the customer first in everything it does from the CEO
to the platform manager. This case is particularly relevant to local government because the
railway industry has a similar legacy of negative perception.
Case example: Great North Eastern Railway
Rail services in the UK are viewed negatively as a failing public service. This has come about
because of negative views of privatisation, poor reliability and safety over the last couple of years not to mention more general issues of customer service. Also, private companies are seen as
profiteering rather than serving the customer.
Paul Thrustle (Head of IT, GNER) states, “like any company we have our ups and downs, but we
suffer more than most from general industry perceptions. In reality, the media play a big part in
setting perceptions alongside everyday service for the general public. In the main it is the media
that set the context and shape passenger expectations, which are reinforced by their day-to-day
experience. Commuter lines suffer more than long distance operators and views of media tend to
be very London centric”.
Paul continues to state that, “technology can help improve the experience - efficient ticketing and
reservations, journey facilities - web and e-mail. In the main they contribute indirectly through train
performance and journey management. CRM is fairly limited as the industry is geared around
ticketing, if there was ticketless travel it may be different. Part of the problem is that most rail travel
is ad hoc; unlike airlines we do not necessarily know who is sitting where or when they travel.
Obviously season ticket holders and regular travellers provide more data to work with but it is still
limited, thus CRM is less valuable.”
With such challenges in mind GNER concentrate on improving the customer experience to enhance
reputation without resort to meeting media demands and sound bites. To improve the customer
experience they actively promote, from top-level management to platform personnel, putting the
customer first in everything they do. GNER’s ethos is therefore highly customer-centric and
everyone is promoted to add value to the customer’s travelling experience with GNER.
Source: Paul Thrustle – Head of IT, GNER.
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3.3
ALIGNING IMAGE AND IDENTITY THROUGH CRM
The general perception is that to date the expensive introduction of internet based
technologies into public services has delivered patchy results. The public perception,
buttressed by acres of critical media coverage, is that e-government has become a
reflection of the state, rather than the solution. It is viewed as a complexity and an
additional layer of centralisation11. However, to develop a better understanding it is probably
worthwhile moving beyond much publicised failures and concentrating also on those
successful government projects and more importantly what commonalities these projects
share. See case examples below of NHS Direct and Liverpool Direct.
Case example: NHS Direct
NHS Direct has grown in five years from a small pilot project to a substantial national service
handling over half-a-million telephone calls and half-a-million internet visitor sessions every month.
As such it is the world’s largest and most successful e-health service of its type, empowering
patients to exercise better-informed choices about their own healthcare. Studies suggest that, it is
well liked by those who use it regularly attracting satisfaction ratings of 95% or higher. It has also
helped to shape public perceptions about modernising the NHS and empowered patients in making
decisions about their own healthcare and that of their families.
Source: (2003) Developing NHS Direct: A strategy document for the next three years, Directorate of
Access and Choice, Department of Health.
Case example: Liverpool Direct
Liverpool Direct, Liverpool City Council’s call centre, is a front line service providing information and
services to both customers and council staff. Having established the call centre to provide a first
contact point for queries from the public, Liverpool Direct is increasingly taking on more responsibility
to manage council communications from a single point. Most of the staff in Liverpool Direct act as
generalists, with the service aiming to provide responses to a wide range of queries and service
requests at the first point of contact whenever possible. The service emphasises human contact with
callers.
Source: 4Ps (2001). Liverpool City Council: embracing the electronic age, Public Private
Partnerships Programme.
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Having considered NHS Direct and Liverpool Direct, an understanding is needed of what
critical ingredient they put in place to develop such an excellent reputation.
The ‘Innovation Document’ (see section 1.2) shows likeness to the cases detailed above
i.e. a radical departure that cuts across many formal interests in the organisation. Patients
and customers have, from the outset, seen both these services as an innovative approach
to the public bodies they represent – combining existing structures in modern ways. By
starting with a fresh outlook and focus these service centres are not marred with the
traditional perception and legacy of public sector organisations (yet can still inherit what is
good about public sector organisations).
Both these services have developed a strong association with excellence and innovation
i.e. an image. The public understand that these services can provide consistent advice and
quality customer service. Likewise customer-facing employees identify themselves with this
quality of service and seek to rectify all problems and calls. Image and identity are
harmonised.
The case example below is from West Lancashire District Council, and shows their
approach to developing a customer-centric brand.
Case example: West Lancashire District Council
West Lancashire District Council has successfully undertaken an identity change for their local
authority, primarily driven by the customer service function. Building on their theme of ‘Services
First’, a new vision was agreed – ‘Putting Customer Services First – building a community second
to none’, a place where people are happy to call home and where everyone feels safe. West
Lancashire clearly defines to the public that they are dealing with a customer-centric call centre with
influence and connections at the hub of the council. John Pye states that, “the call-centre is very
much at the heart of the council. We have direct links to the top via an Executive Manager to the
Chief Executive and the Leader of the Council. Our customer services team has developed a new
identity, where the customer comes first, an identity that is dispersing throughout the authority. In
this sense we get the best of both worlds – a fresh new outlook with no perception legacy, but also
links to corporate priorities”. To aid this customer-centric identity the team developed new logos,
colour schemes, websites, and even outfitted all customer contact employees with uniforms.
In line with this new vision and identity, ‘Putting Customer Services First – building a community
second to none’, the recruitment process for entry into the call centre was extremely difficult. They
looked for individuals across the council who really want to care for customers. Sharon Storey
states, “this is a professional job, in a professional centre – being able to handle an abusive call and
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then begin pleasantries on the next call with the same verve as before is no easy task”. Sharon also
notes that it is critical to get a good team in right from the beginning – “you need a committed,
supportive team from day one. If a call centre fails on the first day you will never get that reputation
back!!”
The strongest theme that comes across from ‘Service First’ is that call centre staff are made to feel
important. By making their staff feel important and empowered they are indirectly making their
customers feel important, hence enhancing reputation.
Source: John Pye and Sharon Storey – West Lancashire District Council
Like West Lancs, once the service team has been successfully developed and has its own
place in the organisation (customer-facing employees identify with service excellence and
customers understand and are aware of this image; image and identity aligned) the service
team can then approach existing silos and authority groups with poor performance and
service delivery. They can offer these silos the opportunity to work collaboratively with the
service team and promote the idea of quality service delivery. However, this should be done
with subtlety and through the correct channels, as there may be concern about it potentially
taking functionality and resource from the heads and leaders of the department in question.
This idea was drawn from innovation and rightly mentions the numerous benefits
collaboration conveys such as transaction costs and economies of scale (remember tax
management – section 3.2).
What can we learn from aligning image and identity through CRM?

Develop a service team with a fresh outlook and focus that cuts across existing
structures in modern ways

Ensure the service team has strong sponsorship at the top of the council, to effectively
compete for resources and develop credibility within the authority

Ensure image and identity are aligned around quality customer service and care. A
characteristic that can, and will probably, diffuse across the council

Create new logos, colour schemes, uniforms, and websites to aid staff identity with the
service development. This also helps build an image that customers can relate to

Look for individuals across the council who really want to care for customers

Put in place a committed and supportive team from day one

Make the call centre staff feel important

Start small, grow fast
The following summary from www.mori.com provides a useful checklist for those individuals
responsible for the development of a service centre. The material complements the content
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of this report where improved service delivery can improve satisfaction and enhance a local
authority reputation.
Useful Points for Developing a Customer Service Team12
In relation to customer-facing employees:

Attentiveness and helpfulness: the extent to which the service, particularly of contact
staff, either provides help to the customer or gives the impression of interest in the
customer and shows a willingness to serve.

Availability: the availability of service facilities, staff and delivery to the customer. In the
case of contact staff, this means both the staff to customer ratio and the amount of time
each staff member has available to spend with each customer.

Care: the concern, consideration, sympathy and patience shown to the customer.

Commitment: staff’s apparent commitment to their work, including the pride and
satisfaction they apparently take in their job, their diligence and thoroughness.

Communication: the ability of the service providers to communicate with the customer in
a way he or she will understand. This includes the clarity, completeness and accuracy
of both verbal and written information communicated to the customer and the ability of
staff to listen to and understand the customer.

Competence: the skill, expertise and professionalism with which the service is
executed. This includes the carrying out of correct procedures, correct execution of
customer instructions, degree of product or service knowledge exhibited by contact
staff, the rendering of good, sound advice and the general ability to do a good job.

Courtesy: the politeness, respect and propriety shown by the service, usually contact
staff, in dealing with the customer and his or her property. This includes the ability of
staff to be unobtrusive and non-interfering when appropriate.

Flexibility: a willingness and ability on the part of the service worker to amend or alter
the nature of the service or product to meet the needs of the customer.

Friendliness: the warmth and personal approachability of the service providers,
particularly of contact staff, including cheerful attitude and the ability to make the
customer feel welcome.

Responsiveness: speed and timeliness of service delivery. This includes the speed of
throughput and the ability of the service providers to respond promptly to customer
requests, with minimal waiting and queuing time.

Security: personal safety of the customer and his or her possessions while participating
in or benefiting from the service process. This includes the maintenance of
confidentiality.
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In relation to the service centre environment:

Access: the physical approachability of service location, including the ease of finding
one’s way around the service environment and the clarity of route.

Aesthetics: extent to which the components of the service package are agreeable or
pleasing to the customer, including both the appearance and the ambience of the
service environment, the appearance and presentation of service facilities, goods and
staff.

Cleanliness and tidiness: the cleanliness, and the neat and tidy appearance of the
tangible components of the service package, including the service environment,
facilities, goods and contact staff.

Comfort: the physical comfort of the service environment and facilities.
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4 A MACRO PERSPECTIVE
Should strategic leaders in local government be concerned over questions of increased
efficiency, satisfaction levels, enhanced reputation and stronger loyalty? A useful insight is
drawn from numerous studies of the private sector. In the private sector customers assign
firms reputations based upon the perceived quality of goods and services that they
experience when interacting with them. Based on the reputations that customers ascribe to
firms, they decide to either continue to interact with a given one or go to another with a
higher level of perceived quality13.
There is substantial evidence showing how the introduction of comparable satisfaction
measures, for example Best Value Performance Indicators, has stimulated competition
between various public service bodies’ i.e. local authorities14. On this basis, it can be
suggested that companies and customers could come to base their location decisions, in
part, upon which local government is most capable of satisfying its residents and
businesses. By explicitly managing reputation, positive aspects will ensue within
economical, political, and social spheres. This is a cyclical process which is illustrated in
figure 5 'The self enhancing cycle'. “Those governments who don't might be likely to
experience the reverse effect i.e. skilled and educated people finding work elsewhere,
leaving behind their dreary city and borough with its dirty streets, rundown and graffiticovered buildings, high rates of unemployment etc15”.
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Satisfied residents
and businesses
Reputation
Management
Economy: Local government might maintain existing
businesses and attract new ones for their regions.
This could maximise job offers and minimise
unemployment.
Political Image: A good image of political leaders
and parties might reduce the negative view of
politicians, maximising the level of public trust in
government and enhancing public participation in
political affairs such as elections.
Society: Empowered citizens might feel more
engaged with public management issues and
policies.
Figure 5: The self-enhancing cycle
This document proposes that CRM, and related internet technologies, will indirectly affect
those factors presented in figure 5 – economy, political image, and society. This does
however assume that the hype and colossal uptake of online commerce will pass
exponentially to online government i.e. individuals would much prefer to go shopping (a
recreation) than to go out and complete a council form (a chore). Hence governments that
stick to the old way of doing business will further open themselves to criticism and
accusations of incompetence. Customers will want to know why they have to stand in line
for a service when people in the neighbouring town, region, or county can carry out
transactions online and without fuss16.
In conjunction with these ICT challenges and opportunities, high demands are being put on
the quality of the working and living environment, and a council must find innovative ways to
improve the attractiveness of its town as a place for companies to locate, for individuals to
live and for tourists to visit17.
This document further proposes that if a council develops a city or region wide ‘brand’ (such
as knowledge capital or capital of culture – see case examples) and binds the CRM
programme into this brand then reputation can be enhanced more directly than simply
following these through separately. For example, a Liverpool citizen enquires about council
tax and is politely informed of an upcoming cultural event in the city. This enhances service
association with the council and hence reputation. It should be noted that brands do not
need to be as grandiose as knowledge capital. Instead a council could differentiate itself as
an environmentally friendly region, or the safest and friendliest capital. It might alternatively
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just take the opportunity of a phone-call from a parent to advertise its new home-working
clubs for children. Perhaps the only limitation is imagination!
Thinking Point – is there a danger of promoting a postcode lottery?
The pursuit of the common good does not necessarily entail uniformity. The term postcode
lottery is often used to suggest that it would somehow be wrong if people cannot expect the
same public service wherever they are. But whilst there are matters for which a uniform
national minimum standard needs to be set, different communities ought to be able – within
an agreed framework of minimum standards – to consider how they want to see their
resources deployed to meet their respective concerns. Where communities are empowered
to develop themselves, the different approaches and outcomes, which follow, should be
embraced as a positive sign of diversity.
Case example: Knowledge Capitals – ‘A regional differentiator’
Consider cities such as Dublin, Seattle, Barcelona and London. What does each of these places
have in common? Typically they are seen as places conducive to imagination, innovation,
regeneration, and renewal. They are exciting, vibrant, places to live and work. These cities have
developed a brand. They are known as ‘knowledge capitals’. But a brand does not breed success on
its own. It needs a strategy to be effective. Each of these cities or regions have developed strategies
that include:




developing knowledge through investment in world class universities and technology transfer
infrastructure
attracting clusters of growing knowledge industries – medical equipment, environmental
technologies, computer software, and creative industries
invest in citizen skills throughout the workforce to feed knowledge industries
put in place effective transport links, for example, international airports
Even with these drivers in place the brand still requires image and identity. Customers and customerfacing employees must understand and buy into the concept. The “win-win” situation for all
stakeholders depends on full co-operation, mutual understanding, total “buy-in”, total commitment,
and total dedication to the delivery. An integrated and coherent community engagement approach.
CRM can provide the ideal platform for such internal and external communications. The CRM
programme should tie in and offer its most effective services to the universities, knowledge
businesses and transport bodies whilst effectively hearing and disseminating to and from the public,
for example, opportunities for training.
Source: Westwood, A. and M. Nathan (2002). Manchester Ideopolis? Developing a Knowledge
Capital, The Work Foundation. Also, The Knowledge Capital, The Contact Partnership.
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Case example: Liverpool, European Capital of Culture
Liverpool has recently been named as the European Capital of Culture for 2008. It is hoped that
winning the title will create an estimated 14,000 extra jobs for the city, along with £2 billion in extra
investment and a further 1.7 million visitors. The successful bid and continued success of the
initiative will rest in the management of stakeholder contact. Indeed Sir Jeremy Isaacs, head of the
panel of independent judges stated: “If you had to say one thing that swung it for Liverpool, it would
have to be that the whole city was involved in the bid and was shouting on behalf of the city". In the
lead up to 2008 Liverpool city council needs to maintain this sense of ownership with the city’s
residents by building in customer feedback into their CRM strategy. Not only should input
mechanisms be included but also output mechanisms need to be developed to promote the myriad
of activities which residents and visitors will be treated to. These include a festival of light, a festival
of comedy, opening of the museum of Liverpool, and other festivals celebrating the city’s links with
Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Ireland and China. With such stakeholder mechanisms built
into the overall Capital of Culture theme, Liverpool council has a unique opportunity to differentiate
its council and move its reputation beyond public norms and beliefs.
Source: S. Pook and N. Bunyan, Liverpool walks tall with hope in its heart, in "The Telegraph",
London (2003).
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5 CONCLUSION
5.1
INTEGRATION OF PERSPECTIVES
This document has highlighted that it is perfectly feasible to develop a systematic way of
building a positive government reputation (building from a negative or zero-based legacy),
and that this can involve the implementation of a strategy-led CRM initiative. This strategic
focus is opposed to merely bolting CRM onto existing services. Strategy-led CRM should
integrate both perspectives included in this document - a customer service perspective and
a macro perspective. The final result is the encouragement of empowered, satisfied, and
loyal stakeholders (customers and customer-facing employees) that will very likely have a
positive view towards local government.
The following table shows an ad hoc CRM programme and sets it against a strategy led
CRM programme. Figure 6 highlights the effects that both of these can have on local
government reputation i.e. an ad hoc CRM implementation will likely maintain a negative or
zero-based reputation, whereas a strategy led CRM will positively enhance local
government reputation.
Ad-hoc CRM (Local government reputation remains negative or zero-based)
CRM is bolted on to existing services. This is as much a lens to expose existing flaws in local
government, as it is a means to remedy them. By shifting information online and expanding both how
and what the citizen knows about government it is very difficult to hide problems.
Strategy led CRM (Opportunity to positively enhance local government reputation)
Customer Service Perspective: The customer service centre is put together with a fresh outlook and
focus that cuts across existing structures in modern ways. Image and identity are aligned around
quality customer service and a positive attitude to customer-facing employees. By developing a fresh
start the service centre is not marred by negative perceptions of local government.
Macro Perspective: The city or regional council develop a brand such as Capital of Culture or
Knowledge Capital and builds these visions into their CRM service. For example, a Liverpool citizen
enquires about council tax and is politely informed of an upcoming cultural event in the city. This
enhances service association with the council and hence reputation.
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Integrate the Customer Service and Macro perspective: The integration of these themes provides a
real opportunity to tie customer feedback and needs into formal policies and implementation. This
might be as small as “the local park needs development” or as big as “we should be a recognised
Strategy led CRM
Ad-hoc CRM
Poor Reputation
(-)
Excellent Reputation
(+)
knowledge capital”.
Zero-based
perception or public
beliefs about how
good local
government can be
Figure 6: An ad-hoc CRM programme versus Strategy led CRM
5.2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This document supports the viewpoint that strategy led CRM is far more effective in
enhancing reputation than merely an ad hoc CRM implementation. When implementing a
strategy led CRM programme a local council needs to integrate and work between the
service and macro perspective i.e. the customer service team needs to work with senior
council leaders. When these parties get together the following checklist should be
considered:

develop a local authority culture that is open to new ways of doing business, either
through ICT or other mechanisms

develop a brand for the area that the local authority works in, for example,
knowledge capital or environmentally friendly region. Integrate this authority-wide
brand into internal and external communications

develop a customer service centre with a fresh outlook and focus that cuts across
existing structures in modern ways. An image should be portrayed to customers that
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they can expect quality customer service – “Put the customer first in everything you
do”. By developing a new image the service centre is not marred by negative
perceptions of local government.

put in place a committed and supportive customer service team from day one i.e.
look for individuals across the council who really want to care for customers and
identify themselves with this ethos

understand that reputation is associated with satisfaction and CRM enables a series
of facilities that allows a better identification of customers’ needs and wants: “A
constituent’s complaint on Friday can be the topic of debate in parliament the next
Thursday”

empower the customer service team to document what they know to be important to
customers and allow them to build their own metrics and initiatives based on this
understanding

customer and customer-facing employees are the best source of ideas to evolve the
local authority
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ANNEXE 1.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
The following terms were extracted from the CRM Glossary in January 2004. For the most
current definition, refer to www.crmacademy.org/glossary
CRM
Council
ICT
LA
Programme
Satisfaction
Brand
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Customer Relationship Management
Refers to District, Metropolitan, City, Unitary or London Borough council
Information and Communications Technology
Local Authority
Refers to The National CRM Programme
Fulfilment of a need or want. We usually consider employee satisfaction
and customer satisfaction.
A characteristic or distinctive element of a local authority
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ANNEXE 2.
1
REFERENCES
Although citizens and businesses are two of the main categories of government customers, the
meaning of ‘customer’ for government is much broader than we might think at first, for example, we
might include, labour unions, religious groups, military personnel, public interests group, community
associations etc.
2
G. Davies, The work of the Institute: The Corporate Reputation Chain, The Corporate Reputation
Institute (1999)
“The heart of the government’s strategy for public services reform is that services must be
3
increasingly responsive to the needs and aspirations of their customers” Wendy Thompson, Prime
Minister’s Advisor on Public Services Reform, April 2002. Also a handful of basic principles and a
framework has been developed that should shape the way the Government approaches the
collection and use of customer feedback. This can be found at http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/page261.asp – The Principles of Customer Feedback
4
D. Shaw, P.Kawalek, L. Batista, I. Cottam, Baseline Environmental Scan and Analysis of Good
Practice in CRM by Local Authorities, Manchester Business School (2003)
5
T. W. Andreassen, Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Reputation as Indicators of Customer Orientation in
the Public Sector, International Journal of Public Sector Management (1994), 7
6
Loyalty may be a strong term but the local authority has a defined constituency, and we can
assume people feel local attachment and affinity to their area, city or region
7
G. Davies, R. Chun, R. Da Silva and S. Roper, Corporate Reputation and Competiveness, London,
Routledge (2003)
8
M. Donnelly, Closer to the promised land?, in "The Guardian" (2003)
9
This point was developed in section 3.5 – The differences between public sector and private sector
CRM” of Baseline Environmental Scan and Analysis of Good Practice in CRM by Local Authorities,
Manchester Business School (2003)
10
T. W. Andreassen, Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Reputation as Indicators of Customer Orientation in
the Public Sector, International Journal of Public Sector Management (1994), 7
11
Curthoys, N. and J. Crabtree (2003). SmartGov: Renewing Electronic Government for Improved
Service Delivery, iSociety
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12
Developed from Public Service Reform: Measuring and understanding customer satisfaction. A
MORI Review for the Office of Public Services Reform
13
Huberman, B. A. and F. Wu "The Dynamics of Reputations." HP Laboratories and Stanford
University. How reputations get established, grow and decay
14
However, the present government has promised a more co-operative and collaborative
relationship between government bodies, for example, Beacon Council’s have been distinguished to
show others the way forward
15
Holmes, D. (2001). eGov: e-business strategies for government, Nicholas Brealey Publishing
16
Holmes, D. (2001). eGov: e-business strategies for government, Nicholas Brealey Publishing
17
H. Tam, Introducing Civil Renewal, Civil Renewal Unit (2003)
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