technology     crm     crm software

Making CRM work

An alliance of Staffordshire Councils is developing a CRM system that brings the citizen to the service

Underpinning the work of Staffordshire E-Partnership is a conviction that the citizen should not need to understand the confusing division of responsibilities among the various tiers of local government. And the pioneering partnership has put its money where its mouth is by developing a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) which brings the citizen to the service.

It is a far cry from the days when service users were bounced from one town hall to another in search of what they wanted.
From Summer 2004, CRM will be available on desktops across several authorities, enabling numerous service requests to be logged and tracked. The system is underpinned by a geographically-referenced database of 300,000 properties - equating to a staggering 1.1 million people. And every business is featured as well.

Fine Tuning
CRM enables instant identification of the relevant council for every request. But CRM does not end there: with the express consent of service users, the partnership is building a database that will profile the needs of individual customers, enabling service delivery to be fine tuned. In other words, front-of-house staff will read customer profiles on screen and will know, for example, if the customer is entitled to Council Tax and Housing Benefits or free school meals.

Customer advisors will be guided by online scripts that are content sensitive, ensuring the right questions are asked. And CRM will be underpinned by a portal offering Frequently Asked Questions. This will ensure that front-of-house staff develop a sound working knowledge of most services. Nevertheless, CRM will eventually route service requests straight to back-office staff, minimising the need for call operators to act as a link.

Explained Partnership programme director Mark Andrew, corporate director of Tamworth Borough Council: “The whole purpose of CRM is to ensure seamless delivery of public services. The technology will join local authorities together, enabling them to provide services for customers from other districts and boroughs.”

The project was part funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), which has given major financial support to the partnership during its three-year history. Said Chris Haynes, the ODPM’s regional lead official on e-government for the West Midlands and North West: “By enabling councils to deliver joined-up services, CRM is completely customer focused.”

Excitingly, the infrastructure is already in place for CRM to trigger services needed regularly by specific customers.

CRM boasts a workflow system, which assigns service requests evenly between customer advisors, and a content management system that ensures information is updated regularly. Added programme manager Tim Chesworth: “CRM will ensure that services are delivered accurately, promptly and appropriately in a manner that is sensitive to the customer’s needs.”

Of the 700-plus services for which Staffordshire’s authorities are responsible, 15 per cent should be accessible via CRM by the end of the summer - climbing to 100 per cent by the close of next year. The rolling out of CRM marks the climax to two years of development work for the partnership. The infrastructure was put in place by Stone-based IT specialist Capula as part of a hefty £5m investment by the participating authorities over 10 years. The investment has included a £1.5m pump-priming grant from the Government. In addition, the councils have spent a further £5m on improving their own infrastructures to embrace the e-government revolution.

CRM will be of great benefit to customers visiting one-stop shops and community facilities across the county. Customers accessing services via the Internet and telephone will also experience the speed and accuracy of CRM. What is more, plans are well developed to enable the technology to be accessed by means of the Government Gateway on digital television.

Joined-up services
At the moment, the partnership comprises Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council plus the boroughs and districts of Cannock Chase, East Staffordshire, Lichfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme, South Staffordshire, Stafford, Staffordshire Moorlands and Tamworth. But talks are underway to involve as many as possible of the 189 parish councils - particularly the 50 larger parishes with community buildings. Staffordshire Police and Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service have already committed to the principle of joined-up services while it is also intended to harness the strategic health authorities.

Crucially, the development of CRM’s “logging and tracking” technology has been complemented by a complete re-engineering of the councils’ business processes. Explained project executive Les Trigg, from Cannock Chase: “We have used CRM as an opportunity to transform the way in which the partners do business. For example, we have been able to bring extra efficiency to the way in which benefit claims are administered.”

The use of Prince II and Managing Successful Programmes methodologies has ensured that projects have been delivered on time, within budget and with the intended benefits. These methodologies have also facilitated the vital business process re-engineering.

At the heart of the partnership is a joint committee comprising members of all the participating councils. The committee ensures that decisions are taken quickly and that the partnership’s work has the endorsement of the political parties.

Joint committee chair Brian Edwards, from South Staffordshire, added: “The joint committee gives the partnership legitimacy because it demonstrates that we are acting accountably in accordance with the wishes of the elected members of the partners. The Government has recognised the robust political and management frameworks within which we operate. And one consequence of this recognition was an invitation to host a national workshop of partnerships on the subject of risk management. The development of the joint committee was overseen by Staffordshire Local Government Association and was preceded by working groups run by the various local authority chief executives,” he added.

E-government portal
CRM is enabled by the Oracle LG 45 suite of programs, along with the partnership’s e-government portal, document management, and workflow and systems integration. CRM runs on IBM software and is supported across a private Staffordshire broadband owned and managed by the partners. Production servers are based at Stafford, with the back up and development-and-test servers in Stoke-on-Trent. Said Tim: “One of the great strengths of the partnership is the economies of scale it achieves in investment through the involvement of the local authorities.”

In short, CRM is seen as a corner stone of seamless service delivery. Another building block is a joined-up directory that sits on the intranets of all the councils, enabling employees to communicate swiftly with appropriate staff from neighbouring authorities.

Another ground-breaking innovation will be the availability of online payment facilities across some of the authorities. In other words, customers will be able to use the telephone or Internet to transact business as diverse as booking a squash court, ordering a home-composting bin, paying Council Tax, or reserving a place on a summer play scheme. Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent and Tamworth are already offering e-payments while Cannock, Lichfield, Newcastle and Staffordshire Moorlands will be online by the end of the summer. Staffordshire County Council and the other partners will follow suit later.

Mark Andrew stressed: “E-government is here to stay and the Staffordshire partnership is determined to ensure that its customers keep reaping the benefits.”

www.staffordshire.gov.uk