Quite timely again this month following on the heels of the IDeA's Avoidable Contact Online Conference. Although NI14 is now defunct it is really good to see so many people 'getting it' re the value of measuring avoidable contact to gain insight into potential service and efficiency improvements.  Lots of good discussions and case studies available online.
We were particularly pleased to see the online session with David Lindill (Transformation Officer, East Herts District Council) talking about channel migration / optimisation - also see last month's blog regarding channel management 'themes'.

There has been no significant change to the overall channel mix of the sample group this month - as previously discussed i doubt we will see a structural difference until we move to Gov 2.0. See last month's chart if you missed it.

Last month we looked at the difference in access channel profiles between different types of councils.

This month we plan to look at a specific service.  We thought we'd kick off with Housing which is one of the higher volume services in most councils - and which is also widely measured across the GovMetric base.

With respect to satisfaction, the highest performing councils in May were:

If we look at a longer timeframe (12 months from 1st April 2009 to 31st March 2010) we can start to understand some of the 'high level' dynamics of how customer access housing services.
From last month you'll be familiar with the access channel chart showing the number of interactions across primary channels in the sample group.  Please excuse the watermark on the charts - these are internal use charts only.

This shows higher than average use of the 'assisted service' channels - however if we look at the months of March 09 v March 2010 we can see usage of web channel moving from 45% to 60% -  a significant shift in what many would argue was a hands on service!

March 2009:

March 2010:

However when we look even more closely at the housing interactions we can see the highest volume is around repairs. With the right web services in place this is a simple interaction type that could be moved increasingly online.
Lets also have a look at the trends over the 12 months - not enough data to compare with in the previous year but interesting to see the dip at Christmas - does it feel like a dip at the coal face I wonder?

Housing Volumes & Satisfaction:

On a separate note it was interesting to see the Scottish Improvement Service launching a new national customer satisfaction standard a couple of weeks ago.  Whilst different in some details to GovMetric it also seeks to establish a consistent approach nationwide.  We also had discussions recently with Toronto City Council - the Canadians have also been using  a consistent approach called CMT - a pan government approach to measuring customer experience. The momentum is building!

Notes
Data is sourced from www.govmetric.com. GovMetric is a customer experience measurement service that enables you to listen to the Voice of the Customer across all contact channels, to prioritise which areas to improve and to measure improvements through near real-time reporting.
For a demo of how GovMetric works please click here.  Make sure you have volume turned on!

Sorry we're a little late in getting this month's information out. We've been at the CIH housing conference in Harrogate.
Understandably much of the discussion at this and other recent events has been around the challenges of doing more for less.  With regards to customer access to services this debate usually includes channel optimisation - which is going to be key over the next few years - lets see why.

Channel migration (or do we mean shifting, forcing, balancing, optimisation etc.)

Different people mean different things when they talk about channel migration. We've started to differentiate this meaning by breaking down into further categories - channel optimisation (getting the balance right for both parties), channel forcing (pushing customers to the supplier's choice of channels), right channelling (working out which services work best over which channels), and a recent one from a project at Amsterdam council which translates as channel balancing.

So this month we have continued to dig further into the data in this area to find some relevant examples. To start off lets take a look at an update to the chart we posted last month (see article below) - the trend in customer interactions over the primary channels.


Apart from the blip around Christmas, which we descibe in last month's article below, the aggregated data across all GovMetric customers is that channel usage seems to have stabilised - most transactional services are done face 2 face and over the telephone - the web is used largely for information provision.  Perhaps this is the position until we shift to Tim Berners Lee's Gov 2.0 world where opening up more systems and data enables a truly self service transactional capability over the web.
There are many exceptions to this though - where councils have fundamentally challenged the way a service can be delivered online. In contrast a more dramatic change can be seen at Irene Lucas's South Tyneside back in 2008/9.

The full case study can be found here.

One size does not fit all!
The more you dig into customer access channel behaviour, the more it becomes apparent that one size does not fit all. Customer segmentation data from Experian and CACI show us that we all have different shape and size communities - with different needs, capabilities, access to services and skills.
Correspondingly - all councils are different. The provision of different services makes a big difference to the customer access channel profile of the organisation. For example let's look at the March 2010 interaction volumes across face 2 face, telephone and web channels for a county and a unitary council. The volumes of interactions are measured as a 'visit' to the council - i.e. a walk in visit, a telephone call or a customer web session over a 30 minute period.
The first chart below shows a typical unitary council profile. In this instance Environmental Services, Education, Council Tax and Benefits are amongst the higher volume services - which gives the profile we see.

However, when we look at at typical County Council we see a different picture - In this case Roads and Transport, Education and Sports & Leisure are heavily accessed services.

Because the customer access channel profile is different for each service, and the range of services varies between the 2 organisations, we see a marked difference.

So what! -  you may ask
We recently supported our colleagues at Experian at their 'Mind the Gap'  conference. Amongst other engagement methods (tweets, text messaging) we were using the GovMetric face 2 face touchscreens to ask the delegates some key questions. A very relevant one to this article was:
"Channel migration and self service represent the biggest opportunity for your organisation to make efficiency savings"
To which the delegates responded as below - clearly this is an important area to gain efficienct savings.

In conclusion channel optimisation is going to be key over the next few years.  There will be much pressure to move customers to cheaper channels, but doing so for the wrong services, or to the wrong customer types, would be disastrous.  It will be essential to measure such initiatives - from both the customer's and the organisations perspectives!

 

**********************************************************************************

 

UK Councils Customer Access Index March 2010 - GovMetric

• Channel migration trends
• Channel preference trends for different services
• Seasonal demand trends
• Channel satisfaction trends
  Etc.

Data is extracted from GovMetric to produce these insights. We probably won't look at each chart each month but will access and comment on those that are showing something of note. It seems appropriate to start with the nation's favourite item - Missed Bins.

The combination of bad weather and the way in which holidays fell over the Christmas break meant bin services were affected all over the country - this was not specific to Northumberland - it just happened they got mentioned online!

From a channel mix perspective it is interesting to see a large increase in telephone volume in December.

Looking at the service demand trends we can see there is a big rise in waste and recyling (and also benefits). These are both services which are predominantly accessed over the telephone.

What's also interesting  is a noticeable drop in satisfaction with W&R during the peak. Not a suprise but interesting to measure how much!