1) Ashford Borough Council serves over 115,000 residents across a large, growing, and diverse area with historically tight budgets. 2) The council aims to improve customer service through modernizing processes, understanding customers better, and increasing access through multiple channels. 3) Plans include a multi-channel call center, CRM system, reorganizing departments, and partnering across agencies to deliver integrated services through a central "Gateway." 4) Investing in new technology and customer analytics is expected to boost productivity, improve the customer experience, and save £265,000 per year through efficiency gains.

1. Technology, customer delivery &
organisational change
Rob Neil, Head of Business Change & Technology
Julie Rogers, Strategic Customer Services Manager
Ashford Borough Council

2. Setting the scene…
• Geographically largest borough in
Kent
• Growth Area
• Pop. 115,000 (at the moment)
• Demographically diverse
• Historically challenging budget
constraints
• Improved customer service a key
corporate driver

3. Customer Driven Transformation
Customer
Journey
Organisation
Journey
Systems
Journey

4. Modernising the
customer experience
• Understanding customer contact
– Transactional vs relationship enquiries
• Access Strategy
– Ensure consistent service delivery
– Match delivery mechanisms to customer base
• Integration
– Make information available over all required
channels

5. Modernising the
customer experience
Customer Contact Centre
Multi-channel call centre
CRM
Re-engineering the organisation
Multi-agency service delivery
Understanding our customer base better
Channel shift

7. Modernising the
customer experience
• The Gateway Concept
– Partnership based service delivery
– Focus firmly on convenience and ease of access
– Borough & County Councils, Skills Plus, local
healthcare agencies and voluntary organisations
– Housing “Trailblazer”
– Adult education packages and
free internet access
• Other partners
– Libraries
– Post Office

9. Investment in customer
services: why?
• Improving the customer experience
– How do new processes and services affect the end
customer experience
– Customer experience – “the degree to which
customers felt that interactions met their needs”
• Boosting productivity of customer-facing workers
• Need to reengineer customer facing services

10. Investment in customer
services: why?
• Exploiting customer analytics
– Understand customer behaviour better
– Make insightful customer facing decisions
– More robust customer data integration &
management
– Key to unlocking value in customer services
investment

11. Investments in functionality
% of new
licence
revenue
Forrester, 2006

12. The technology landscape
• Mitel 3300 ICP & vMCD
• Mitel Contact Centre Enterprise Edition call centre
platform
• Voice recognition and virtual agents
• Teleworker
• IVR
• Call recording
• DPNSS to legacy voice switch

13. Voice services expand…

14. Fitting it together
IG
Q.S
R I, RI,
, P 1, B
E1 93 0
Q. DN3 IP / SIP
VoIP G/W IS NGN Services
3300 ICP etc..
Call Centre Unified Mobility
MCD* MCD*
Control comms solutions
VMware vSphere 4

15. ICT & Customer Services
Ashford Borough Council
Civic Centre
Tannery Lane
Ashford
TN23 1PL
(01233) 331111
www.ashford.gov.uk

16. • Schools
• Emergency Services
• District & Boroughs
• Kent Connects
• Kent County Council
• Universities & Colleges
• Libraries & Museums

18. Business Benefits
• Flexible call handling
• Promote self-help rather than assisted – phone and online
• Reduced transaction times
– Screen-popping applications with caller details
• Deploy technology in innovative ways – better RoI
• Reduced infrastructure costs
• Efficiency savings of £265,000 pa
– Against overall budget of £543,000
– Technology investment of £200,000
over 3 years

19. Tech at the heart
of the business

20. For more information
(01233) 330850
rob.neil@ashford.gov.uk