My Council project putting customers at the heart of transformational change
A fundamental shift in The Highland Council’s approach to customer contact got the go-ahead today (30 March 2023).
Convener of the Council and Chair of the Redesign Board, Cllr Bill Lobban said: “The My Council Project is helping to deliver our Programme commitments to ‘actively redesign service delivery’ and to ‘improve our response times in replying to enquiries and service requests from the public’. This aspirational project will make fundamental changes to how the Council connects with all its customers and how they connect with us.”
Councillors agreed that the Council will proceed to the second phase of the £0.5M ‘My Council’ Project which will impact on all services across the local authority and all customers who contact The Highland Council.
A report to councillors on the first phase of research work undertaken by the My Council project team identified that “…while there are some areas of excellent customer service within The Highland Council, to truly deliver the standard we aspire to will require transformational change.”
Members agreed a draft Customer Contact Vision which will have a commitment to ensuring all the Council’s customers can access the services and information they need through the route that best suits their needs. The Council’s Vision will offer an inclusive customer-focused end-to-end service, ensuring that the customer is at the heart of what it delivers.
Councillors also approved 4 proposed workstreams for the second phase of the My Council project which will run from 1 April 2023 to 30 November 2023.
The 4 workstreams are:
Customer Contact Strategy – setting out the Council’s proposed approach to Customer Contact in the future, the methods, approaches and expectations internally and externally.
Data-led and Customer Informed (Business Intelligence) – ensuring that customer contact improvements are data-led and informed by customer feedback.
End-to-End Customer Journey – ensuring the customer has sight of their requests throughout the contact process.
Customer Contact Methods (Online: Website / Customer Relationship Management (CRM) & Telephony) – developing contact methods to improving digital and self-service mechanisms and improving access to timely information through the Council’s website.
A detailed work plan for the second phase of the project will be presented to the next Redesign Board for Members’ consideration.