Liverpool City Council has won the National Business Award for the
best use of technology for the innovative use of customer
relationship management.
"We are using technology as an accelerator for change," Liverpool
City Council chief executive David Henshaw told CW360.com after
winning the award. "In the past, a local authority was valued by
its land. In the future, its value will reflect the information it
holds."
The council has taken proven techniques from the private sector,
such as data analysis of customers in retail, to capture data on
the general public. "We are doing what the private sector does
already by developing customer profiles," says Henshaw.
In the future, he adds, this information would help Liverpool City
create better services.
As an example, by tracking refuse collections using its Oracle CRM
system, the council could measure the effectiveness of the service
delivered by its contractor, Onyx. Sensors within wheelie bins
could even be used to track the amount of refuse generated by each
household, paving the way for an environmental reward scheme.
Henshaw says another use of the technology was to get " a sense of
what is happening on our patch".
Liverpool City Council has begun using a geographical information
system (GIS), to examine demographic trends, such as the spread of
single-parent families within the city.
The award comes three years after Henshaw became chief executive.
At the time, Liverpool City Council was rated third from the bottom
in the local authority league table for council services. It also
had the highest council tax in the country.
The move to CRM began with a concept that Henshaw describes as
"intelligence-led local government".
"We began organising the council around our customers, instead of
around council departments," he says.
A key step was the creation of a joint venture with BT and the
formation of Liverpool Direct, set up to provide the council with
information and communication technology, maintenance and repair of
IT systems and a new call centre.
Henshaw wanted to offer the general public a single point of
contact for all local government services. Staffed by 240 agents
and run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the call centre now
accounts for 75% of all customer contact at Liverpool City Council
and handles 37,000 calls per week.
A further 20% of customer contact is now is handled through one of
seven "one-stop shops", set up around the city to provide the
public with a single point of contact for council services. The
City's Web site takes just 5% of customer inquiries.