Follow us on Twitter

Access our Document library

Meet the team

Wealden upgrades its customer contact channels

Posted by admin on Wed, 25/01/2012 - 13:27
Printer friendly


Wealden Local Council.gif
Wealden District Council has centralised its customer service function into a single Contact Centre using Microsoft Dynamics CRM after admitting that its previous system had resulted in a ‘silo’ approach to customer service.
 
Microsoft reseller Optevia was used to implement the new system using its Local Government Essentials tool, which provides generic functionality (including streamlined navigation, an enhanced customer entity, GIS integration, LLPG lookup) and specific business processes to reduce implementation effort, cost and risk.
 
“It became obvious that we needed to move to a more flexible platform that would allow the council to offer more services through the new Contact Centre,” said Helen Standen, Wealden’s Head of Customer Service and Systems.
 
“We needed to work with departments to start to assist in areas where high volumes of calls were being received to start to move some of that volume to the Contact Centre. We also needed to increase the number of calls being resolved at first point of contact. The CRM system we had did not offer the flexibility that we needed to add new services ourselves,” she added.
 
Optevia Dynamic Integration Hub was used to enable rapid integration with multiple back office systems. The Wealden Contact Centre is also looking to deploy Optevia Dynamic Portal, a self serve product that will enable Wealden to securely ‘transact’ with citizens via the web.
 

The new software replaces a Front Office system from Northgate which the council says offered limited functionality and was used largely to record contact, rather than to process requests. Phone contact with citizens was restricted to a switchboard answer service and staff had no ability to access customer records or case histories, resulting in longer waiting times for citizens and inefficient use of staff time.