Socitm says councils should centralise customer contact management

Local authority IT body singles out four councils for praise

In addition to sharing information and services, cash-strapped councils should centralise their customer management in a bid to save money, according to local authority and IT body Socitm.

In a benchmark survey entitled Better served: customer access, efficiency and channel shift, the body argues that all front-office customer contact should be brought under central management, enabling call centres to be run to common standards.

It argues that this will lead to better service and value.

The report argues that enquiry and service data across all parts of the council should be collated and analysed to help manage customer enquiries efficiently.

Very few councils currently collect enquiry data, and where there is data it appears that there is significant variation across councils, with associated costs varying between £1.80 per head and £13 per head of local population.

The report argues that where contact costs are high councils should be able to bring the cost per head down into line with those councils that spend less.

Councils should do this by shifting from phone, mail and face-to-face contact to the web, where the information available should be thorough and of high quality, thereby reducing avoidable subsequent contacts.

Although few councils have yet fully tackled customer management it gives the examples of four that have.

• Birmingham City Council anticipates savings and benefits totalling £197.4m over 10 years from its ‘Customer First' programme, which is part of a wider programme of council-wide transformation.

• Tameside council aims to save £1m over the next four years with better management of the front office and access to face to face contact.

• Surrey County Council has reduced the cost of phone and web contacts from 79p to 49p per enquiry since 2007 and saved £175,000 in its contact centre plus £150,000 elsewhere by reducing avoidable contact.

• Rhondda Cynon Taf council improved its web site before attempting to move customers away from face-to-face service.