Enhancing Customer Access: Wiltshire Council Services

1. John Rogers, 24 June 2009 Member Induction - Customer Access

2. My life as a customer • The new phone line • The new tap • The holiday sandals • The fridge repair • The 21st birthday present book

3. What we will cover • How do people access our services? • How well are these arrangements working? • What are our ambitions for access to service? • Making access local – your views

4. Access channels • Face to face • Main hubs in Chippenham, Devizes, Salisbury and Trowbridge; • Other face to face: libraries, tourist information, town councils. • Telephone • One number: 0300 456 0100 • Other numbers: county wide numbers, local service numbers • Web • One website www.wiltshire.gov.uk • Email • customerservices@wiltshire.gov.uk • And many others (go to the website first)

5. Access to service – face to face Main service centres: customers are able to: access the same “DC” services they could; plus get comprehensive information on any “CC” service; plus get some straightforward “CC” service delivery; plus make payments for any service; plus get help to arrange appointments where no-one is available to help at that time.

6. Access to service – face to face Local service centres: Amesbury, Marlborough Library Contactpoint, Mere, and Salisbury Library Contactpoint. information about any council service, as well as help to contact services and make appointments at main offices. plus libraries, Tourist Information Centres, North Wiltshire Town Councils, Salisbury City Council. staff will be able to give information and help customers to contact services.

7. Goals for 1 April: access to service which worked • No disruption to service prior to 1 April. • At 1 April: • Phones are answered. • Website works. • Face to face service works. • Emails get answered. • Customers know how and where to get service. • Customers get the correct response, first time. • Foundations for the future.

8. What has already improved? • A generalisation, across a very wide range of services, four major channels, and numerous locations: access is at least as good, easy or local as it was before 1 April, and has often improved. • Face to face: • New service centre in Salisbury; already served 10,000th customer. • Can access all local government services at four main service hubs. • Telephone: • Answered by a person, not a machine. • Can access all local government services using one number. • Web: • New website which you can personalise to your needs and interests. • Can access all local government services at one website.

9. Communication from our customers • "Very impressive service. The phone was answered on the first ring. Hope this is the future of things to come." • "I wish you every success, and hope that you will continue to give the service we have always received." • Glad we would still be local as “always happy with the service received”. • “Great no machine!” • Customer commented about “new website and how easy it is to use and find things, and it looks good”.

10. That’s all very well but…. …that was only the start line.

11. What does customer focus mean? • Easy access and perfect service delivery – content and manner. • Getting the right transactions onto the right channels, all the time. • Getting the customer in the fewest possible steps to the person/place with the skills and authority to deliver for them, first time, every time. • Giving the right answer, first time, every time. • Addressing root causes: fixing things before they happen. • Maximum value and minimum waste – from awareness, through contact, to fulfilment – ie the best possible value for money. • A great reputation with the public, as an organisation.

12. What will that involve? • Understanding our customers (many varieties) and communities (ditto) and using that knowledge to prioritise and design our services. • Greatly improving the performance/usefulness of each access channel – web, telephone, face to face. • Joining up services within the council, and across the public sector, and with community and voluntary sector partners. • Developing our workforce – skills and behaviours. • Changing how our organisation operates.

14. Customer journey – our performance Measure • Awareness: “I have a need; I know where to go for help”. • Contact: “I have easily found a suitable solution”. • Fulfilment: “The solution has been delivered and it worked/works”. • Transparency: “Your decision-making was fair, open and transparent”.

15. Questions

16. Making access local (discussion groups) • I live in a major town/market town/village/hamlet or smaller. My expectations of service are…. • Web • Telephony • Face to face… • Putting ourselves in our customers’ shoes… • While considering options for making it work… • And identifying people/groups who can help us….

17. Questions, contacts and close Customer Services contact details • Chippenham/North – Beryl Wright • Devizes/East – Heather Lovelock • Salisbury/South – Niki Ward • Trowbridge (both)/West – Paul Redford • Operations Managers – Wayne Smith and Frank Coleman • Head of Customer Access – John Rogers • Customer Services support for members: 01225 713009

18. Thank you

19. 24 June 2009 Customer Access – detail (handout)

20. Communication with our customers • Dentons and the Phone Book (February onwards); • roadshows (March); • council tax leaflet (March); • local press inserts (end March); • information on our letters, forms and brochures (April onwards); • A5 flyers with local service numbers (end April); • A-Z of services (May); • service launches; • and the website….

21. Access to service – face to face Face to face – main: Chippenham: Monkton Park. Devizes: Browfort. Salisbury: 27/29 Milford Street. Trowbridge: Bradley Road. At these locations customers are able to: access the same “DC” services they could plus get comprehensive information on any “CC” service, plus get some straightforward “CC” service delivery, plus make payments for any service, plus get help to arrange appointments where no-one is available to help at that time.

22. Access to service – face to face Face to face – local: Amesbury, Marlborough Library Contactpoint, Mere, and Salisbury Library Contactpoint. information about any council service, as well as help to contact services and make appointments at main offices. plus libraries, Tourist Information Centres, North Wiltshire Town Councils, Salisbury City Council. staff give information and help customers to contact services.

23. Access to service – face to face Face to face – County Hall. Service at Bythesea Road (County Hall) continues to be primarily by appointment with particular service teams and specialists; we aren’t marketing it as a general walk-in service centre. However, some people do come in and request services. For these people, we provide information and some straightforward services, and put people in contact with the right service area. We have refurbished the reception area and it is staffed by Customer Services people.

24. Access to service – telephone Telephony: one, plus service numbers One number: 0300 456 0100. Customers can access any service on this number but for some services there are better numbers to access services. It costs the caller the same as a local call from that number; so it is free in inclusive call packages, and if there is a charge it is usually be about 1p/minute.

25. Access to service – telephone Telephone: one number, plus service numbers Golden service numbers:0300 456 0101-0119 launched as services are ready. 0300 456 0111 – Social Care Help Desk 0300 456 0112 – Elections 0300 456 0119 – Automated payments (24hr) 0300 456 0120 – Emergencies and disaster information/ helpline Other golden numbers will follow once the service is ready to go, county-wide.

26. Access to service – telephone Telephone: one number, plus local service numbers Several important services are not yet the same county-wide, so customers use local service numbers to get through to the right people in the right office. There are about 50 of these numbers; they connect customers to council tax revenues and benefits, waste and amenity services, planning and building control, housing, and environmental health, among other services.

27. Access to service – telephone • 0300 456 0100 is covered from 08:30-5:30 Monday to Thursday and 08:30-5:00 on Friday. • All service numbers are covered for at least 09:00-5:00 Monday to Thursday and 09:00-4:30 on Friday (varies by service and location). • Calls to 0300 456 0100 are answered by people in Customer Services all around the county. • All our previous and existing numbers still work and are answered; this will continue for an open-ended period. • Key point: customers are able to get through on the phones. • We are able to connect customers to the right people to provide service; we have a new ‘searchable’ county-wide contact directory to facilitate this.

28. Access to service – telephone How do our customers know which numbers to ring? • Our website has all of them. • Our A-Z leaflet and the local Denton’s directories have most of them. • Any leaflet, letter or form about a service has the specific numbers to use. • We have also published our main number in the BT Phone Book and will add golden numbers to these entries as they go live. • We will continue to promote and communicate our phone numbers.

29. Access to service - www.wiltshire.gov.uk. • new website; • transactions carry forward from old sites; • can be tailored by customer (location and services).

30. Access to service - www.wiltshire.gov.uk. Web address: www.wiltshire.gov.uk Old web sites: decommissioned at midnight on 31 March; old page addresses replaced by auto forward to correct page on new website (ie bookmarks and searches work). New website: went live at 00:01 on 1 April.

31. Access to service - www.wiltshire.gov.uk. How does the website deal with having different services in different places? Customers click on a link to the service they want. If the services vary in different locations, at that point, and not before, the website asks about the location. It will then always offer local service information which reflects that, during that visit and at future ones. As we create county-wide services over time, these differentiated pages disappear.

32. Access to service - email Email What is the best way to email the council? By going to our website, finding the service pages, and using a “contact us” tab from there. This gets you to the exact inbox, accessed by the right people, without even needing to know the address. How else can customers email the council? Can email the council using service inboxes, for example: homes4wiltshire@wiltshire.gov.uk, and elections@wiltshire.gov.uk. Emails to these inboxes will be opened and forwarded to the team at the relevant location.

33. Access to service - email How else can customers email the council? some communications give a more local inbox address and you can send email to those. examples: revenuesandbenefitseast@wiltshire.gov.uk buildingcontrolsouth@wiltshire.gov.uk developmentmanagementnorth@wiltshire.gov.uk licensingwest@wiltshire.gov.uk

34. Access to service - email Email How else will customers be able to email the council? Customers will be able to email customerservices@wiltshire.gov.uk and it will get opened and sent to the right inbox for fulfilment. Dol all the 1,300 old service inboxes still work? Yes, email to old addresses are either accessed from that inbox or auto-forwarded to correct inbox, to be responded to.