Southwark
council has reduced incoming calls from citizens with its One
Touch Gov contact centre system.
One Touch Gov is designed to reduce avoidable contact between
residents and the council caused by a failure to resolve requests
efficiently.
Southwark Council is providing residents with one point of
contact to deal with more than 100 public services based on a new
customer service system.
This will enable residents to request several council services
simultaneously, such as applying for a parking permit, registering
on the electoral roll, applying for free school meals and setting
up a children's clothes allowance.
Provided by Southwark technology partner Vangent, One Touch Gov
is based on Adobe's LiveCycle Enterprise Suite.
The system pulls together information from an authority-wide
master database, integrating live data from a variety of back
office systems into dynamic intelligent forms.
This enables customer service representatives to access a
comprehensive picture of all relevant services a resident may need
that may arise from a life-changing event, such as moving into the
borough, or a change in their financial circumstances.
In the past, this would have required a resident to make
numerous calls to the council to sort out such things as parking
permit applications and housing benefits.
Now, if the customer agrees, the customer service representative
will check their details on Southwark's centralised resident
account, enabling a number of required services to be actioned
automatically.
The rep can then provide information about additional services
that can be dealt with at the same time, detailing how much of the
pre-populated form has already been completed and how long it will
take to finish.
Since its implementation, an average of 800 customers a month
have opted for the One Touch Gov service.
Dominic Cain, client services director at Southwark, said,
"Since the implementation of One Touch Gov, more than 5,000
residents who contacted the council about one service then opted to
benefit from two or more additional services.
"Not only does this reduce the need for multiple contacts, which
is frustrating for residents, but it also frees up valuable
resources to help meet service demands elsewhere."
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