Communities & Local Government – Customer Insight Peter Blair Local Govt Transformation, Improvement & Efficiency

A Strategic View Customer Insight in practice Agenda Why is Customer Insight important? Sources of information & support

3 The UK's 468 local authorities spend over £80 billion on day to day services - over a quarter of all public expenditure. 20,000 Councillors represent local citizens and communities on these councils. They employ over 2 million people and deliver 750+ different services. Local government is responsible for about 80% of all citizens interactions with UK Government A Strategic View

4 The accepted current position Within the public sector, Local Authorities are generally the most innovative and forward-thinking on customer service Considerable investment has been made in local government over the last few years in terms of one-stop shops, contact centres and websites There is burgeoning interest across local government in customer insight techniques, including journey mapping and lifestyle & behaviour profiling (segmentation), as well as the measurement of customer satisfaction

5 The accepted current position Local authorities are by definition close to the communities they serve. They are good at: consultation with citizens gathering data on customers and using this information on single-service issues However, only a few local authorities: Ensure that customer insight is driving service design Challenge delivery models to reduce duplication and non-value- adding customer contact Optimise channel management to make use of cheaper digital channels where appropriate Integrate performance of web, contact centre and face-to-face services to empower customers with an authentic choice This is the real challenge of transformational government!

6 The policy imperative for customer insight Move to a more evidence based policy approach CSR07 focus on value for money and performance in the front line delivery of public services Citizen expectations of quality and service are rising and the public sector needs to respond Taxpayers have a right to expect good service High quality customer insight valued in the private sector as a strategic business asset

7 Reshaping Service Delivery Community engagement - involving citizens more in decisions that affect them Customer Insight - deep truths about behaviour CRM intelligence - real-time management info. Targeted services - audience segmentation Personalised services - citizen empowerment Customer journey mapping - the customer perspective Business Process Improvement (BPI) - reducing waste in the service delivery chain Channel migration - optimising use of more efficient service delivery channels

8 Customer-Centric Services Tesco can adjust its shelves to suit the profile of the local area: Tesco in Brixton sells plantains, a kind of savoury banana from the Caribbean that is also much in demand on market stalls outside; Tesco stores in central London do not sell plantains, but are instead designed around selling sandwiches to office workers at lunchtime and then ready meals to them in the evening. Their strategy combines local knowledge with strategic planning and control. Successful companies use customer needs as the starting point Varney Report, para.3.6, p.24

9 LA services - view from the public I have been in the telephone book under Croydon, there is about an entire page of council numbers. It is a nightmare. Group 5: 24-34, C2DE, male, without children, London If you send an off you dont know whether they have got it. If you ring someone up you grab their name, then have a contact to get back to. Why hasnt this now been sorted? Group 5: 24-34, C2DE, male, without children, London Its 2006 now and if you havent got a website youre not really that up to date. But if someone had said Contact your council, it wouldnt even occur to me to think I could do it on the website. Ill probably go onto it tomorrow at work, just to see what its like. Group 3: 18-24, BC1, female, without children, Leeds I rang up at Christmas to find out when my rubbish was going to be collected, and I was waiting round for ages in a queue. By the time I was wasting money on my phone bill ringing them I could have gone on the internet and I would have probably found out straight away. Group 1: 18-24, C2DE, female, with children, London (Source: Cragg Ross Dawson for CLG, 2006)

10 Keep the customer satisfied Its the same old story Everywhere I go, I get slandered Libelled, I hear words I never heard In the Bible And Im one step ahead of the shoe shine Two steps away from the County line Just trying to keep the customers satisfied, Satisfied. Simon & Garfunkel

11 Customer insight concerns How easy and straightforward is it for the customer to complete their encounter? - Customer experience and journey mapping To what extent is the quality of the encounter sufficient to satisfy customers? – Tracking customer satisfaction How do we build a truly customer-focused organisation? – Empowering front-line services

12 The strategic challenge A significant proportion of service demand is accounted for by secondary or avoidable contact (failure demand) with budgets locked-up accordingly, rather than in acting to turn off the cause(s) Local Authorities account for 80% of all citizen interactions with government, but their websites currently account for about 30% of all government traffic The phrase, Im going to phone the council remains ingrained in the public consciousness, with even simple information requests often being handled by expensive specialists and reinforced by low levels of public awareness about alternative means of receiving services and information

13 Business Improvement Package (BIP) – Increased proportion of customers using more efficient service delivery channels Understanding customers lifestyle preferences for service delivery, as well as meeting their needs Understanding of the dynamics of service demand and how it can be managed more efficiently to avoid the need for secondary contact Web services integrated with back office systems (e.g. CRM) in order to offer customers a genuine choice in the way that they receive services

14 CLG activity Working with Cabinet Office & IDeA to establish Local Authority Customer Insight Forum Working with esd-toolkit on Customer Profiling Project to develop common framework for profiling services used by different customer segments Working with Tameside MBC on optimising take-up of Free School Meals Exploring the benefits of good channel management in a service delivery context – Greater Manchester pathfinder

15 Monitoring progress – National Indicators NI 14: Avoidable contact: the proportion of contacts within key service areas that are a poor use of customer and officer time - Service Transformation Agreement (STA) (from October 2008 onwards) NI 179: Value for money: total net value of on-going cash-releasing value for money gains that have impacted since the start of the financial year - CLG Departmental Strategic Objective (DSO) NB. CSR07 agenda is not about cuts in service!

16 Customer insight requirements of NI 14 NI 14 is an indicator not a target! Will involve LAs in taking a critical look at the design and delivery of key high volume services: Quantification of customer contact Identification of service failure – poor use of customer time Performance data on customer contact ideally collected electronically via CRM or contact management system Cross-government intention to halve avoidable contact by end of CSR07 period (STA, paragraph 2.11)

17 Articulating the customer insight agenda in local government Local Government Delivery Council oversees strategic transformational government agenda on behalf of Local Authorities, including key customer focus and insight initiatives: Progress on reducing avoidable contact as part of the Service Transformation Agreement (STA) DWP Tell Us Once Project (improving customer journey for birth and bereavement, as well as the creation of a change of address service by 2010) Setting-up of Local Government Customer Insight Forum (LGCIF) Work with esd-toolkit on customer profiling

18 Prototypes Tameside Tests – Functionality of Government Connect Outcome – Tameside unable to secure Government Connect Connection. Exploring use of other local authorities Rotherham - at point of registration Tests – TUO Birth related: Customer and Registrar attitude; Resource impact; As is and to be mapping; Use of technology, especially SMS; Customer experience; Legal barriers Outcome - Citizen support for TUO shown. Ongoing support from RMBC for TUO and customer service improvement Southwark - at point of registration Tests – TUO Death related: Impact on LA services; Registrar attitudes; Opportunities in using TPS Joint Teams; Test TUO proposition on recently bereaved; Legal barriers Outcome - 71 % would welcome TUO service 80% willing to give further details of deceased e.g. NI No. Key Outcomes Developed approach to enable effective sign-posting as per the Tell Us How model Rotherham customers asked at the point of contact - 90% believed TUO a useful proposition Understood a risk to delivery being the ability for central systems to integrate with local technology and established work with DWP IS/IT to review and develop proposals for taking forward Tell Us Once – LA Prototypes

19 esd-toolkit - Customer Profiling Project CLG supporting work of esd-toolkit on customer profiling Online software, data and guidance to help local authorities understand their residents and to profile customers for individual local authority services now available Mosaic data made available by Experian and pre-loaded for unlimited use by subscribed authorities Cost modelling functionality to see the effects of encouraging channel shift

20 Why is customer insight important? Individually tailored services Services tailored by segment One size fits all SatisfactionCost SatisfactionCostSatisfaction (Source: RSe Consulting)

21 What do the best councils tell us? If we want to put our customers first, we need to know them better." London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

22 Customer-led access strategy in LBHF Focused on three discreet customer entities: Residents Direct - for better-off segments, e.g. parking permits, council tax enquiries, electoral registration - efficient; Smarterborough - one-stop solution for all street scene, anti- social behaviour and enforcement type enquiries – responsive; Community Support - for less well-off and deprived segments, e.g. social services, benefits, housing, education - inclusive.

23 Better for the customer, better for front- line staff and better for the taxpayer (Source: LBHF)

24 Other sector-led initiatives - Socitm Components: 1.Website Take-up Service (WTS) 2. GovMetric (from Rol) 3.Customer Access Channel Benchmarking (working title) Detailed information on: website take-up, usage and satisfaction usage and satisfaction comparing phone, web, face to face and (coming soon) other channels cost of providing access through different channels Joint venture between Socitm Insight and Rol (to be launched 24 April 2008)

25 e-Service Delivery Standards – Customer Services

26 LGA/NCC – Customer Insight Protocol Rules of consistency for customer survey data -

27 Meeting the needs of citizens not government

28 Looking at things from the outside-in Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes …

29 Looking at things from the outside-in Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes. Jack Handey, American Comic Writer (b.1949)

Communities & Local Government – Customer Insight Peter Blair Local Govt Transformation, Improvement & Efficiency