Issue - meetings

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property introduced the report, which was approved by the Executive in July 2022 and sets out the Transforming East Herts Business Case, principally for the new Customer Service Model/ Customer Relationship Model (CRM).

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property said that there were currently only four functions which could be completed by customers online. He said that this was not customer friendly (especially to those who were shift workers), raised the burden on council resources and increased the council’s telephone call volume.

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property said that the council could not afford to provide more staff to answer telephone calls, and that currently only seven in every ten calls were targeted to be answered. He said that taking advantage of automation would not only free up resources but would also allow those who were unable/ did not wish to transact online to get through to the council by telephone.

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property said the investment would also see the council’s financial and telephony systems move to the Cloud. This would eliminate the need the for the double keying seen in the current procurement system and allow staff to answer the telephone from any location via ‘soft phones’ on their laptops. He said that taking advantage of technology would make the council more efficient and effective. 

The Deputy Chief Executive told the Committee of her recent experience of moving house from East Herts and into another district. She said that the East Herts online form which she completed covered only one service area and asked her for irrelevant information. She said that in contrast the CRM used by her new authority was seamless, linking services and giving automated confirmation and advice. The Deputy Chief Executive said that this seamless CRM experience was what was wanted for the residents of East Herts. She acknowledged that such a system would require an initial investment but said that she believed a CRM was needed to enable the council to offer a better service to its customers going forward, allowing those who could self- serve to do to so twenty-four hours a day and those who were unable to, or who did not wish to self-serve to get through to the council via the telephone.

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property said that the use of a CRM was not new, having been implemented at many councils following austerity. He said that fundamentally a CRM gave better value for money, giving better customer service at a price which the council could afford. He reiterated that it was not good enough that currently three in every ten customers did not get their telephone calls answered, and that it was not viable to employ more staff to answer the current call volume.

Councillor Huggins said that all Members agreed that there was a need to modernise, but this should not be at the expense of flexibility. He said that the CRM  ...  view the full minutes text for item 164