Channel management, avoidable contact and transformation

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Channel management, avoidable contact and
transformation 23 April 2009
How to build up website up website take-up
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Two years ago

• Joining up phone and web services
• On their out-of-hours messages
• just 21 of councils refer callers
• to website (Nov 2006)

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Today

• Joining up phone and web services
• On their out-of-hours messages
• just 41 of councils refer callers
• to website (Nov 2008)

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An improvement?

• 100 increase but
• Still 3 out of 5 councils are not trying to
  maximise use of website in the simplest of ways

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Who are they?

• Thank you for calling Coventry Direct and
  Coventry City
• Council. We are open Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm,
• Saturdays 9am to 1pm, except bank holidays
• If the matter is an emergency, please phone
  Coventry
• 02476 832222 otherwise please leave your name,
  address
• and message and one of our advisers will contact
  you when
• we are open. (End of message)
• Message on 02476 833333 (Sun 19 April)
• PS We have been rated a 4 star council

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Why is this?

• These councils have not yet realised that
• councils should now commit to self-service on the
  web
• and should organise themselves to make it happen
• PS, NI 14 might be a more than useful trigger
  for action

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the three main components

• GovMetric (rol)
• Website take-up service
• (Socitm Insight)
• Channel value benchmarking
• (Socitm Insight)

• High level information about satisfaction and
  take-up for the major channels
• More detailed information about satisfaction and
  take-up for the most critical channel
• Key information about costs and volumes for all
  channels

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Uncharted waters .
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Costs of channels

• Face-to-face 6.56 per visit
• Phone 3.22 per call
• Web 0.27 per visitor
• (Source Channel value benchmarking,
• Socitm Insight, December 2008)

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Costs of channels

• Face-to-face 6.56 per visit
• Phone 3.22 per call
• Web 0.27 per visitor
• (Source
• Socitm Insight, December 2008)

• face-to-face 7.81
• telephone 4.00
• web 0.17
• (Source NWeGG. 2006)
• Also, another study about
• to publish
• face-to-face 5.51
• telephone 2.53
• web 0.17

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Usage of channels

• Source IT Trends (Dec 08)

• Source GovMetric (Nov 08)

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Usage of channels

• Average monthly visitors
• Shire county 91,903
• Shire district 22,110
• London borough 87,387
• Met district 154,317
• Unitary (E) 48,057
• Unitary (S) 43,235
• Unitary (W) 40,927
• Source
• Website take-up service (Nov 08)

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Satisfaction with channels

• Face-to-face
• Web
• Phone
• Source GovMetric (Nov 08)

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Dissatisfaction with web channel

• Source GovMetric (Nov 08)

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Dissatisfaction with web channel

• Q Did you find what you were looking
  for?
• 56 Yes, completely
• 20 Yes, partly
• 19 No, not at all (up to 40 in a few cases)
• 5 Not looking for anything in particular
• Source Website take-up service (Nov 08)

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Dissatisfaction with web channel

• Did you find what you were looking for? 19 No,
  not at all
• On average each month
• Shire county 18.300 visitors Shire distric
  t 4,500 visitors
• Metropolitan district 16,100 visitors
• London borough 18,000 visitors
• Unitary (England) 12,000 visitors
• Unitary (Scotland or Wales) 7,500 visitors
• Source Website take-up service (Nov 08)

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Dissatisfaction with web channel

• Leads to avoidable contact, wasting the public
  time, and your resource
• If you had not come to the website for this
  purpose, what would be your preferred way of
  contacting the council?
• gtgtgtgtgt

• Source
• Website take-up service (Nov 08)
• By phone 42
• By e-mail 23
• In person 9
• By post 3
• In no other way 12
• Dont know 11

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Impact of avoidable contact on the web

• An example
• In January 2008, Dudley MBC had 70,507 visitors.
• 17.4 did not find what they were looking
  for(12,268), ie 511 per day (24 days /mth)
• 83 say they would try alternative channels
• Up to 424 wasted calls per day

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Web channel needs to improve ..

• How can this be done?
• Managing website differently
• Learning secrets of online success
• Both are steps to transformation across the
• organisation

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Key messages about channel management

• Councils should now commit to self-service on the
  web
• Web is the cheapest channel by far (if fully
  integrated)
• Web is the most popular channel, but has highest
  level of failure and dissatisfaction
• Failure and dissatisfaction leads to costly
  avoidable contact
• Web channel must improve
• All channels must be managed in an integrated way
  within a clear customer access improvement
  strategy

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Blueprint for next five years
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The website is a corporate asset

• Governance should at least cover
• development of clear, documented web strategy for
  next three years that reflects corporate and
  service objectives
• active involvement of top managers
• clear roles and responsibilities
• clear priorities for managing the site
• clear guidelines and standards for management of
  web content

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The website is a major channel for delivering
services

• Web has developed separately from other channels
• All customer services and phone operators must
  use same core information
• Avoidable contact flows from swapping channels
• Attracting more people to self-service increases
  importance of integrated channel management
• Head of customer services should have direct
  responsibility for delivering consistent and high
  level of service across channels

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The website is a key resource

• Web team may be with ICT, communications or
  elsewhere
• Only exceptionally is it within customer services
• Channel shift demands that customer services
  becomes much more involved, if not in charge of
  website

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The website reflects the web teams mix of skills

• Important focus on website design must be
  subordinate to understanding the customer
• Usability testing observes customer navigation
  around site, but generally, web developers lack
  marketing and service perspectives, so do not
  align themselves with the customer.

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Only service managers can maximise website value

• Do service managers know
• how many people already use council website
• importance of keeping their service content up to
  date
• website is vehicle for radical service redesign
• Service managers should
• press web managers for ways to improve services
• set expectations of what they want to achieve
• invite web developers to advise their management
  teams
• Web content should be at heart of their jobs, not
  at margins

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The value of the website lies in its content

• Trend of continuous addition to the website
  information base makes it unwieldy and
  compromises good navigation
• Lack of standards in developing content
  (readability, accessibility, etc)
• Ad hoc content management arrangements lead to
  poor quality, uneven coverage and out-of-date
  information

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Website testing shapes success

• Usability testing is best way to find how people
  navigate, but rarely tests accuracy of
  information content
• Measure specific task from start to end to test
  usability and accuracy of content
• How long did transaction take and how does this
  compare with other council websites that provide
  same facility?

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Key messages from successful online services

• Usability of on-line service is critical issue
• Marketing online services is about much, much
  more than advertising, promotion, and PR
• Effective multi-disciplinary team work is needed
  to create successful online services
• Important to understand benefits to all those who
  have stake
• The service manager has the key role

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A word of warning

• There may be resistance from those in contact
• centres and one-stop shops
• Disguised as questions about the figures
• Stated openly as threat to jobs

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A word of warning

• Your web teams might also have to think
• differently
• The biggest challenge a website manager has is
• to understand how humans work, not how content
• management software or search engines work. There
  is no
• better way to do this than to observe customers
  as they
• seek to complete top tasks on your website
• Gerry McGovern, web guru

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For the moment, can you answer yes to these
questions?

• Do your web and contact centre managers meet
  regularly to discuss what customer phone
  enquiries might be diverted to the web?
• Are contact centre staff encouraged to suggest to
  callers that they can find information on the
  web?
• Does your we are experiencing high levels of
  traffic message suggest people look on the web?
• Do you know the proportion of phone and
  one-stop-shop enquiries to your authority that
  could have been answered on the web

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Our next event

• Learn more about
• managing your website
• May 19 Birmingham

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Our next event

• Learn more about
• website take-up
• June 2 London

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• Any questions?

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Channel management, avoidable contact and
transformation 23 April 2009 Thank you for your
time
How to build up website up website take-up