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Transforming Customer Services - Delivering citizen centric access channels

September 18th, Edgbaston, Birmingham

This event focuses on how local authorities are addressing the challenges of the future by highlighting how effective customer service can drive service improvements, increase customer satisfaction levels, improve staff morale and deliver efficiency gains. The publication of the Varney report - Service Transformation: a Better Service For Citizens and Businesses, a Better Deal for Taxpayers, has highlighted the need for government to transfrom the delivery of customer services across the public sector.  This event will consider the importance of the report and how local authorities should respond to some of its recommendations.

Through practical ‘best practice’ case studies and round table discussion, delegates will be able to help assess their organisation’s progress, identify and celebrate good practice in Customer Services and identify key areas for development.  Attendees will gain an insight into the following themes:

• Partnership working – balancing efficiencies and service quality
• Challenging the Varney Report
• Best practice in complaints handling
• Developing multi-channel access and offering transactional services 24/7
• Virtual call centres
• Shared services – working together to improve service delivery
• CRM integration and contact centres – limitations, costs, efficiency gains

Confirmed case studies/speakers

Chair
Janet Callender, Chief Executive, Tameside MBC

Best practice in complaints management
Ian Mapp, Head of Product Management, CDC Respond
In this session, Ian will cover:
1.  Citizen experience from logging a complaint through to resolution
2.  Measurement and handling of complaints and feedback
3.  CRM systems and complaints management
4.  Facilitate root cause analysis to drive organizational learning
5.  Visibility of complaints and feedback holistically throughout all departments to drive efficiency and meet KPI’s
6.  Best practice examples referring to The London Borough of Camden and others

Mapping the Customer Journey for Service Delivery Improvement
Dr. Lorna Peters, Programme Research Manager, Hertfordshire County Council
· Case study from Hertfordshire County Council
· How an understanding of the customer journey was gained
· What service improvements were made across the organisation as a result
· Present outcome as result of changed customer/staff perceptions
· Discuss customer journey mapping & potential for future improvement in relation to free school meals service

Value For Money Framework: an achievable goal?
Alix Cunnell, Project Manager, rol
This presentation will discuss:
• What does Value For Money mean to you – and your customers?
• The link between customer satisfaction and Value For Money
• Choosing the right measures
• Current projects and initiatives
• What might a Value For Money dashboard look like in 2010?


Public sector complaints handling and the Varney report: From the 'nitty gritty' to the Big Picture
Helen Clipsom, Corporate Development Manager, Customer Services, City of Bradford Metropolitan Council
• The change in emphasis  from “dealing with complaints” to “using feedback as integral to the improvement process”
• The role of technology in developing that emphasis – taking crm out of the contact centre and making customer feedback part of business as usual
• Data mining for improvement – using the information in our systems to track end to end delivery
• See all the picture (one of the things the Varney PI recommendations does usefully contain) – use all the tools: satisfaction indexing, individual feedbacks, data mining, focus groups, employee inputs

The root of every great customer experience is knowledge
Tom Castley, Senior Sales Manager, RightNow
Learn how by migrating knowledge from your back office to the finger tips of your frontline staff and your customers, you can both improve the service provided and also delivery on the Varney and CSR mandates.  The presentation will be supplemented with case studies from Flintshire Council, the US Social Security Administration, Stoke-on-Trent Council and British Airways to illustrate how this can be achieved.

CRM integration in the public sector – looking beyond the hype
Rob Neil, Head of ICT & Customer Services, Ashford Borough Council
• Drivers for the deployment of CRM in local government
• Why integrate?
• Costs vs savings – getting the balance right
• Measuring effectiveness and return on investment

Partnership working; balancing efficiencies and service quality
Helen Frances, Head of Customer Service, Salisbury District Council     
Interpreting national drivers and delivering local priorities: 
- Customer Satisfaction
- Locality
- Efficiency
Wiltshire Customer First Shared Values approach
- agreeing values
- consistent measures
- working together on quality
Challenging Varney
- When is bigger better?
- Economies of scale versus local engagement
- Focusing on "Strong and Prosperous Communities




Additional speakers tbc shortly

Speaker biogs


Janet Callender
Janet is Chief Executive at Tameside Council.  She trained as a Solicitor, working in both private practice and local government.  From 1989 onwards, she undertook both legal and senior management roles with Manchester City Council and Knowsley Council, until she left to join Tameside as its Chief Executive in September 2003.
Janet has always been at the leading edge of developments in accessible customer services and was instrumental in the recognition of Knowsley’s accessible services as a Beacon Service.  She was Knowsley’s e-service delivery champion.  At Tameside she continues to actively champion the e-Tameside agendas and the huge opportunities and benefits it brings to the community.  She is Chair of the North West e-Government group, and following Tameside’s appointment to lead Government Connect nationally in January 2006, now chairs the Government Connect Sponsoring Board.Tameside hosts the Regional Centre of Excellence for the North West.  Janet chairs the Centre’s Management Board and is a member of the National Chief Executives’ Taskforce, leading on efficiency and procurement.  She is a member of the North West Improvement Network and is working with the Regional Implementation Team on the delivery of the Pay and Workforce Strategy across the region.  She is committed to putting people first and actively leads developments in the “people” agenda.  At Tameside MBC she has placed the Council’s People’s Strategy at the heart of the Council’s continuous improvement work to deliver sustained improvements in the quality of life of the people of Tameside. Janet is a member of the Delivery Council led by the Prime Ministers’ Delivery Unit, focusing on public service transformation.  She is committed to joining up the drive for improvement in service delivery all agencies.

Tom Castley
Tom Castley joined RightNow in January 2003 and is responsible for the public sector vertical in the UK. Prior to RightNow Tom spent 18 months working for Day Interactive in the Content Management space where he headed up their public sector business unit. Previous to this Tom worked for Brightware/Firepond for three years in both sales and business development roles.

Helen Clipsom
Helen studied Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford – an institution that has produced several Time Team members – then embarked on a career in local government.  Starting at the bottom – the junior desk in the Rates Office – she worked her way up through the Community Charge and the Council Tax, developing an interest in the way systems (computer and work practices) and customers collided.  As Corporate Complaints officer for Bradford, Helen worked with the Charter Task Force in the early 1990’s to develop a template for handling customer complaints and problems with council services.  From this, she went into a role which looked at the whole of the customer/council interface, managing teams which handled customer-facing policies, complaints and customer feedback; business practices and business systems; and new methods of customer interaction (internet, self service options etc).  Working with providers, Helen’s team helped create a customer relationship management system tailored to the needs of a local authority, including operability in multiple locations and environments, handling a wide range of very different services, and handling complaints and customer problems efficiently both as part of daily business, and in escalation.  That project is currently reaching the end of its implementation phase.  Helen’s current focus is on delivery of self service, particularly over the web but also looking at digital options.

Rob Neil
Rob is currently Head of ICT & Customer Services for Ashford Borough Council with responsibility for a diverse range of functions, including IT, Customer Services, telephony, reprographics and document management.  He is also the lead officer for Data Protection and Freedom of Information issues as well as being the Programme Manager for Ashford's t-government projects.  Over the last 5 years, Ashford Borough Council has been recognised as a leader in the deployment of new technologies to improve customer services, winning several national awards.

Ian Mapp
Ian heads up product management at CDC Respond and since joining the company in 2006, has spearheaded the establishment of product management as a strategic discipline and further extended the company’s role as an industry thought-leader with tools such as the Feedback Maturity Model, the Feedback Data Hub and the Gold Standard Process initiative.
 
Helen Frances
Helen is currently Head of Customer Service at Salisbury District Council. She is responsible for the development and implementation of a highly flexible Customer Service Unit that deals with queries for a wide range of council services, including planning, parking, environmental services, tourism, concessionary fares, council tax, benefits and general enquiries. Using CRM and contact centre telephony, she has introduced a virtual contact centre which is operated from various offices across the 400 square miles of the district. With a combination of technology, training and excellent staff Helen has been able to develop a service that is both “deep” and “wide”. Many areas of service already exceed the 80% resolution at first point of contact, and more work is planned. The Customer Service unit is also home to the council’s Business Improvement Team, responsible for reviewing end-to-end processes to identify better ways of working that mean that all customers’ needs are met as efficiently and effectively as possible. Helen’s driving commitment to customer service improvements is fuelled by the belief that most of the solutions should be simple;
“Finding ways to help our excellent officers make best use of technology and information shouldn’t be a constant battle. By keeping the desired results – excellent service at a low cost – at the forefront, we are able to find common ground with our technical and specialist departments and with our business partners and suppliers. After all, similar work is being carried out across the country!”  Helen is also chair of the Wiltshire-wide Customer Service Managers’ Forum, which has recently agreed a set of shared service values for the whole Wiltshire Partnership, including Districts, the County Council, and the Fire and Police authorities. She contributes to national development of Customer Service in the public sector through her role as regional Chair of the Customer Service Managers’ Network, and by speaking at national and regional conferences.

Lorna Peters
Following a career in IT, pursued an interest in human cognition, with particular reference to how human learning can be modelled on computers. After gaining a doctorate in Cognitive Science, researched and taught at university level for a few years and now working in the public sector. Led on research and further development for the eAdmissions National Project, helping to deliver online school admissions at a national level. Currently working with Hertfordshire County Council and the Department for Children Schools and Families on transformation of services for parents/carers, as their children progress through their school education.



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