Customer Experience - What have we been doing?

Appendix 1

Improving Customer Experience

To deliver a continually improving digitally

enabled customer experience that is

relentlessly reliable, efficient, meets the

expectations of our residents and sets the

benchmark for customer service

excellence.

Customer Services – a long journey

Cabinet report Sept 2010

• B&D Direct – The CRM system only monitored 17% of customer activity, with customers waiting on average 20 minutes to be seen face to face and 20% of phone calls are abandoned.

• Contact Centre - at time of transfer 20% calls answered – now 87% and £1.1m cheaper, and overall contact volumes (across all channels) up by approximately two thirds

The world has changedCustomer Services Volumes and Channel Shift

The changes in the ways customers interact with us – a significant shift over time to less face to face

and more on-line transacting

Adopting a 80%+ strategy

New website based on user need

Highest standards of accessibility

Premier customer access channel

Website

Range of online forms to enable self-serve

Integrated with the back office to reduce admin

E-forms

Phone menus which prioritise typical user need

Signposting to website to promote self-serve digital

options

Telephony

Before After

Call volumes 63,000 Per month

52,000 Per month

Calls answered75% 92%

Wait to answer5.8

minutes 3.3 minutes

IVR Menu16

options6 options

E-forms completed 500 p/m 8,200 p/m (Sept 2019)

Channel shift has happened

Customer Satisfaction

* General Local Auth’s CSAT based on 7 LA’s (The institute of Customer Service)* Caution on base sizes from LA’s (LBBD based on c.1000 responses per month)

70.00%

75.00%

80.00%

85.00%

90.00%

95.00%

100.00%

Customer Satisfaction

B&D General CSAT General Local Auth's CSAT

On average we are performing well above other Local Authorities (c.20% plus)Our results are based on our Contact Centre performance and generally show

that the agents are friendly.

Council Website – development and specific initiatives

Siteimprove and accessibility

Why accessibility is important?

GDS quote: “Accessibility means that people with a disability can do what they need to do in a similar amount of time and effort as someone that does not have a disability.”

Our website needs to be accessible and easy to use for all our residents including those with:

• Visual impairments that require screen readers

• Dyslexia or are on the autistic spectrum

• Deaf or hard of hearing

• Physical or motor disabilities

New UK Accessibility Law

A tool called Siteimprove

• Scores our accessibility against international guidelines and peers - score out of 100 measures how effectively website meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

• Current benchmark for government websites: 72.9/100

• www.lbbd.gov.uk: current score is 92.4/100

What we’re doing for mobile users:

• Constantly reviewing design

• Testing on multiple browsers and device types – we test Chrome, IE, Safari, Android and iPhone which account for 99% of our users

• Promoting accessible and mobile focused design principles

• Focusing on user experience

Device use has remained consistent throughout 2019 so far:

• Mobile: 60%

• Desktop: 31%

• Tablet: 9%

Waste

What we did

• Gave users the option to use all waste forms outside of My Account.

• Created a process to allow users who have not used My Account to track the

progress of their report by using their reference number.

• Displayed known missed street information on the website before the user reports

a missed bin to prevent them reporting this.

• Updated terms and conditions of bulky waste to make the process clearer.

• Uploaded new website content to encourage more recycling.

Results

• There has been a reduction in calls see chart –when compared to this time last year calls are down and are significantly lower than projection.

• Total number of contacts in September 2019 was approximately 3,400 or 7% less than that in September 2018 (See chart)

• Since we introduced the list of missed street collections there have been 2070 visits and ONLY 75 have gone back to fill out the form.

FIG 1

Parking

Issues

• Clunky process

• Asking for evidence

• Complaints / Reminders

• New CPZ ‘s means more permits need to be issued

What we did

• Updated web content to make more user friendly

• Permits now automatically approved, allows them to start parking immediately.

• Proof documents are validated retrospectively

• if incorrect/ false proof then request further proofs or cancel the permit

• Renewal permit reminder emails are now sent one month before permit expires

• For renewals user just asked to confirm that none of their details have changed and

then make payment - now a one step process

• Cancelling a permit is now automated process with automated credit. This

cancellation will happen immediately which allows the customer to apply for another

permit immediately. Admin fee removed.

Results

Reductions in:

• Call volumes down from c. 1400 calls a month in

2017-18 to c.850 a month in 2018-19 * (of all calls

taken c. 35% are signposted to the website)

• Automation for admin - appeals are now being

responded to within 5 working days (inside the

statutory SLA) vs. 30 days in he first half of

2019.

• Much improved and intuitive customer experience

(reduction in complaints)

• Complaint volumes have shown a decline

• Most permit complaints (c.80%) are about the price

increase and not the application process – price

increased Sept’18

4 step application process

Simple payment

Instant email notification that permit is ready

Gov Notify –Texting for our customers

GOV.UK Notify

Notify is a product supplied by the Cabinet Office which allows local authorities, and other public sector providers, to send texts, emails and letters on a pre-negotiated, competitive rate.

Pricing

• 25,000 free text messages

• It costs 1.58 pence (plus VAT) for each text message we send after we’ve used our free allowance.

• Emails= free

• Letters= 30p + VAT second class vs. Royal Mail 34p for postage only.

Timeline

July August September October November December January February March April May June July

2019 2020

Council Tax

Business rates

Green Garden Waste

Housing repairs

Libraries and children centres

School admissions

Leaving care service

Housing

Rent arrears

Benefits

Bulky waste

Pest control

Registrars

Time for slack and snags

Pushed back to November

Housing and Repairs

Texts sent through

Capita via Deeplake

Pushed back to 11 November

• Account switched to live July 2019

• Sending texts and emails to remind and chase payments.

• Notify is 2.5p per text cheaper than using Reach (previous supplier) as

we estimate sending c. 60,000 per year.(4p vs 1.5p, estimate of £2,700 in

savings per year)

• Messaging clearer and streamlined

• Allows us to see whether a message was successfully received

• Since August we have sent 9,230 text messages

• We have 76,000 customers’ numbers on record from the report of “data

subjects involved in processing”.

Council Tax

• Live July 2019

• Will be sending emails for reminders, final notices and summons.

• 1069 emails sent since July (2.5% bounced).

• Unable to currently gauge % of payments from emails

Business Rates

• Service starts 11th November

• The texts will cover:

• Make sure existing customers are aware that their permit is up

for renewal

• When the service have been unable to make a collection a text

will be sent so customers don’t have to report this

• Where collection dates alter due to bank holidays customers will

be advised when their altered collection date will be

• The objective of these messages is to be more proactive, letting

customer’s know information before they need to ask and

providing an enhanced customer experience

• We have to date the mobile numbers of 4,410 customers out of

the 7,000 odd who use the service

Green Garden Waste

Community Solution – Universal Offer

Website & Online Analytics

Online transactions (webforms)

200 Early Help referrals completed (went live in August)

3000 Serious concern about a child reports (MARFs)

(went live in February)

2,200 Housing register applications (went live in March)

1400 applications for Job Shop (went live July 2018)

Children and families pages: users are primarily professionals who are completing MARF/ Early Help referral.

The face-to-face customer service for the council

From April 2018 to November 2019, there were 88,917Universal Enquiries. Only 264were repeat enquires, the rest were resolved at the first point of contact. 2,021 were complex enquiries. From April to November 2019, 100,177 pages were scanned on the self-serving scan stations.

0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000

Benefits

Council Services

Education

Online Transactions

Health

Housing

Mobility Services

121 Advice

Signpost

Universal Enquiries from April 2018 - November 2019

From October 2018 to November 2019, 247new residents joined the Community Food Club. They visited 1,193 times. There was a total of £19,684.50 passed on to residents Saving of £322k for OSS Dagenham closure.

This is why we set up Community Solutions

We are leading the way in relation to homelessness prevention

Increase in households approaching council at risk of becoming homeless97%

2500+

209%

1,644

50%

Residents supported via our Homes and Money Hub to tackle debt, access jobs

Increase in households accessing the prevention fund

Increase in discharges from temporary accommodation

Reduced the number of households in TA by 281 from 1,925 in October 2017

-494 -265 -211 -99-95 -60 -52 -43 -30 -18 -14 -6 -4 -3 -2 -1 8 12 13 42 42 45 49 53 67 80 85 98 134 136 171

497589

London: Increases/decreases in Temporary Accommodation

We are bucking London performance in TA

LBBD had the 5th largest reduction of TA in London (-95) last year

Working differently: reducing harm + saving money

5% 100%

£600k

48 34

2018/192017/18

Permanent social workers

Legal costs

Families supported

accommodation and subsistence spend

for intentionally homeless families

£0£80k

Placed in council accommodation 0% 45%

£0

No Recourse to Public Funds down to just 23 families

Return of Elevate Services

Different options for Elevate services from 2020

• Joint venture• Outsourced delivery• Shared service• In-house delivery• Traded service • Market testing

• Engaged with other boroughs• Workshops with external and

internal stakeholders• Equality impact assessment

venture

• Outsourced delivery• Shared service• In-house delivery

Contact Centre

Main LBBD contact centre, Careline, Out of Hours, Mobility services

Procurement & AP

ProcurementAccounts Payable

ICT IT Service desk, applications, networks, systems, projects

Revenues & Benefits

Revenues, Benefits

Financial Assessments

Returning Elevate Services

Delivery

9 Dec 20

Service Contract ends

1 Jul 20

ICT service returns

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

22 Jan 19

Business Case approved

12 Apr 19

Deed of Variation signed

1 Feb 20

Contact Centre and Procurement & Accounts Payable

services return.

1 Sep 20

Revenues & Benefitsservices returns

Definition

Elevate Exit timeline

Formal staff consultation (TUPE)

QUESTIONS?