• Councils are missing opportunities to exploit website investments for efficient enquiry handling
• Report reveals danger of new silos emerging around phone and web channels

A new report based on research into telephone enquiry handling by local authorities raises many issues also highlighted in the Varney Report on service transformation published by HM Treasury as part of the pre-budget report.

Better answered? A snapshot of local authority telephone responses, is a new report from the Society of IT Management (Socitm) that explores, from a citizen’s perspective, the experience of dealing with local government by phone.

The research used ‘mystery shopping’ to sample the experience of making different enquires to the council by phone - which remains the channel of choice for most citizens wanting to contact their council - and also explored the degree of integration between the telephone and the website channels.

The report shows that many councils are missing opportunities to encourage enquirers to make use of information provided on their website when sustained investment over the last five years has ensured that all councils provide a vast amount of information and transactions on their websites which can be accessed 24/7. For example, just 21% use their out-of-hours message to refer callers there.

In addition, telephone enquiries by researchers to a sample of local authorities found that on a number of occasions they were passed around different departments or even referred to different organisations only to find that valuable information on the council’s website had never been mentioned by council staff handling the enquiries.

Although the report identified many examples of good practice in enquiry handling, there were few examples of local authorities that exhibited best practice in both call handling and in publishing information about how to contact the council by phone on their website.

Eight councils matched the report’s model of best practice in telephone contact information on websites, but only one of these went on to be cited as an example of good practice in any part of the telephone survey.  And none of the councils that emerged as best at telephone enquiry handling are also included in the top websites listing in Better connected 2006, the latest edition of Socitm’s annual survey of all local authority websites.

The evidence suggests that, although there are many examples of good practice, they depend on individually well-run services (eg the website, the first response at the contact centre, and individual service areas within the council). There is little evidence that local authorities have a fully-integrated view of customer service across their activities.

According to David Hunter, who wrote the report ‘These issues are important, because in future, success in managing contact with citizens will increasingly depend on an integrated, multi-channel approach – a concept underlined in the Varney report. In addition, there are significant efficiencies to be gained from persuading customers to switch from making enquiries by phone, which cost the average council around £1.50 a time, to ‘self-servicing’ their enquiries on the web which reduces the cost to around 12p.’

In his foreword to the report, Stephen Baker, chief executive of Suffolk Coastal District Council and CIO Council member 2005 to 2006) urges all chief executives and senior managers to make time to consider the conclusions of the report: ‘The effective management of telephone and website contact has always been important, but it now contributes to a much wider policy context that provides considerably sharper definition to what we need to deliver. Indeed, the latest report on service transformation from Sir David Varney echoes the key conclusions in this report, and emphasises the challenge that we now face in evolving customer service to meet future demands.’

Martin Greenwood, Programme Manager for Socitm Insight said: ‘As citizens and customers, if we wish to phone an organisation, we increasingly look for their number on their website and expect to find clear information. When we ask someone for advice, we increasingly expect to be able to download background documents from a website. Critically, we expect frontline public sector employees in contact centres or call centres to be knowledgeable not only about their services, but also about how their websites can help citizens and customers.’

Better answered?: a snapshot of local authority telephone responses is available in pdf format to Socitm Insight subscribers from 14 December 2006 and soon afterwards as an 88pp printed report. 

Non-subscribers can order the report (cost £175 - Socitm members £150) from the Socitm website.

Further information

Further information about Better answered?: a snapshot of local authority telephone responses and press copies of the report (pdf format) are available now.

Vicky Sargent or Peter Coates, Socitm Press Office
Tel: 0845 094 5641 email: vicky.sargent@socitm.gov.uk or peter.coates@socitm.gov.uk

Martin Greenwood, Programme Manager, Socitm Insight
Tel: 01926 498703 or 07967 383755  e-mail: martin.greenwood@socitm.gov.uk

Notes for editors

This is the first Better answered? survey of local authority telephone contact and complements Better connected, Socitm’s annual survey of all local authority websites.

The review team surveyed the websites of all local authorities in the UK, and their supporting out-of-hours messages, to find out how well they presented information about contacting local government by telephone.  The team then undertook telephone survey based on the scenario of a person moving to an area with a set of enquiries for the council related to education (children moving to new schools) and planning (conversion of part of a house for home office use).

From this wide-ranging research eight key messages have been identified about information management and customer service. Those specific to websites were:

• Councils are not making full use of their investments in their websites.
• Relevant information, easy to find, remains crucial

Those about customer service in local authorities were:

• The first point of contact matters.
• Basic customer service also matters.
• Customer journeys through local authorities remain complex.
• Professional ‘silos’ are alive and well...
• ...as are different professional cultures
• Good customer contact is efficient

The goal should be to encourage every caller to use the website next time, wherever possible and appropriate.