Citizen Services Products
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Email: CRM Overview
Central and local government rightly sees CRM as one of the key enablers for e-Government. This is borne out by its prevalence in the ODPM Priority Outcomes. For example:
R16 "E-enabled 'one stop' resolution of Housing & Council Tax Benefit enquiries via telephone, contact centres, or via one stop shops using workflow tools and CRM software to provide information at all appropriate locations and enable electronic working from front to back office"
R27 "Systems in place to ensure effective and consistent customer relationship management across access channels and to provide a 'first time fix' for citizen and business enquiries, i.e. using a common database, which holds customer's records, to deliver services across different channels, and enabling joined-up and automated service delivery"
G24 "Integration of customer relationship management systems with back office activity through use of enabling technology such as Workflow to create complete automation of business process management"
The organisation and efficiency of customer service within local authorities has a direct effect upon the levels of, amongst others things, Accessibility, Inclusion, Involvement and General Care that can be offered to citizens. As well as these high level ideals, a council also wants to be able to get jobs done as quickly and economically as possible. Similarly, citizens want to be able to have their immediate needs attended to and dealt with as quickly and easily as possible.
The correct form of Customer Relationship Management for local government is an extremely valuable tool in the provision of services that meet the ideals outlined above. CRM is now enabling councils to have a complete view of their customers (Citizens) and the many and various interactions that each Citizen has with his or her Local Authority. The various access channels that are being introduced as a part of e-Government programmes is extending the reach of the Council, and allowing it, at last, to provide direct and efficient services to those Citizens whose needs may be the greatest but who have traditionally found it most difficult to get those needs attended to.
CRM plays a critical role in improving service delivery and customer satisfaction. It enables the local authority to become transparent to the citizen by organising service access in a logical manner from a citizens viewpoint. It is often regarded as a technology but in fact CRM is a citizen-centric philosophy that impinges on everything a local authority does in relation to its interaction with the citizen. CRM can enhance an authority's ability to deal with the citizen by linking the back-office systems pivotal to a citizen transaction and presenting all the relevant information in a manner that fully supports that transaction.
CRM software solutions come in many shapes and forms. Many were designed originally for the commercial sector and have to be shoehorned into Local Authorities. They often contain a large amount of inappropriate functionality and have an unnecessarily high price tag.
A CRM solution for Local Government must provide the right level of functionality in those areas that are high priority for Local Authorities. Of course, this includes such things as outbound campaigns for proactive services, which will become more important to Authorities as time goes by. However, the core priority areas for Local Authorities wanting to implement CRM always include strong contact management, flexible and robust integration with back office, and easy delivery through the main access channels - telephone, internet and face to face.
CRM