Partner Article

Bolsover and North East Derbyshire Councils Transform Customer Service Delivery and Drive Channel Shift with Firmstep

Bolsover District Council and North East Derbyshire District Council are transforming their customer services and driving channel shift with a shared deployment of Firmstep’s Platform.

Both councils are using Firmstep’s AchieveService customer experience management solution as a cloud-based local government alternative to their previous Northgate CRM system. By sharing Firmstep solutions, the councils are boosting efficiency in their customer contact centres, and using Firmstep’s Platform to move a range of popular council services online, enabling residents to self-serve securely.

This will support both Councils’ drive for channel shift across their most frequently-used services, and ensure consistent handling of enquiries across all channels, helping to reduce administration costs.

The joint deployment is part of a Strategic Alliance in which the two neighbouring authorities of Bolsover and North East Derbyshire work together, sharing assets and aligning processes to deliver ongoing savings and efficiencies.

Bolsover District Council Leader, Councillor Eion Watts said: “We formed a Strategic Alliance to help streamline processes and transform the way we deliver services. We have found Firmstep’s Platform, is specifically tailored to local-government needs, so we are able to develop more efficient public services that integrate seamlessly with our shared back-office systems.”

Since going live with Firmstep’s Platform in December 2013, both District Councils have already aligned and automated several services, including waste collection and reporting of environmental health issues. The introduction of e-forms has proved popular with residents and both authorities are now working to align additional services, including pest control, to further improve efficiency.

North East Derbyshire District Council Leader, Councillor Graham Baxter MBE said, “Transforming services is one of our major priorities and the Firmstep solution certainly ticks all the right boxes. It is helping us reduce overheads and cut back on the number of IT systems we use. But the most important thing for us is that it helps to give residents easier and quicker online access to our services that will generate ongoing savings.”

The two councils will also use Firmstep’s Platform solution to build self-service portals, which will drive further channel shift by giving residents a common interface to securely access local services and personal data, and enable them to track the progress of transactions and service-requests.

Firmstep’s Platform is a suite of solutions developed specifically to accelerate channel shift, make council services more accessible, and improve the customer experience. It can be adopted in a modular way, from supporting a single council service, to enabling complete customer service management across all contact channels. With its unique integration capabilities, the Platform links to any council back-office system, giving easy, open access to data with no need for complex programming or system changes. This helps councils and local authorities to quickly roll out solutions that meet customer service expectations and successfully achieve channel shift.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Firmstep .