How to improve business by delivering high quality services

Good customer service is essential for all local authorities; and making full use of the IT tools already in place can make cost-effective improvements to the service, argues Shafkat Shahzad. It is a common fact that most office-based software systems are only being used to about ten per cent of their actual capability. Some of the functions of programmes people use on a daily basis are never explored and yet, by doing so, complex tasks can be delivered more speedily, and with greater accuracy.

The same can be said of Microsoft’s Outlook Calendar – a regular bundled feature of a company’s suite of email programmes and now common in the workplace. This online ‘appointments diary’ allows team members to inform those contacting them by email where they are, and when they will be available to deal with an inquiry. It can be argued that MS Calendar can improve communication and time management throughout an organisation and deliver real benefits to those dealing with customer enquiries. It can help customer service teams gain an accurate view of colleagues’ time commitments and give them an idea of their own future time commitments. During daily communication with both internal and external customers at Fylde Borough Council, the customer services team deals with a variety of issues and queries requiring officer support. If team members are not sure of officers’ current whereabouts, or whether they are available on a particular date or time, then the team cannot provide good customer service. For example, the Council may receive a phone call from a customer wanting to speak to a staff member who is not located in the office or department. If a team member tries to direct the caller to the relevant staff member without knowing their availability status, then the Council is not providing a good service. Consider how frustrating it can be for a customer, having already spoken to a member of the frontline team, to be redirected to a voicemail. In order to build good and effective customer relationships, it is important to provide information as accurately as possible. This is where the wider use of Outlook Calendar has helped at Fylde.

To use MS Outlook Calendar to improve services, the Council extended the use of the system internally to improve access to information, which, in turn, has had a positive impact on providing customers with a satisfactory response at the first point of contact. In essence, the system allows the customer service representative to be better informed and provides more accurate information. This prevents customers being passed on to voicemail facilities ‘blind’, and provides the option of offering an alternative contact who is available or letting the customer know when the original contact is next available. Staff members can access each other’s MS Outlook Calendar, dependent on settings, to see when staff members are available and a user can easily manage and access another person's Calendar. For example, an assistant manager can manage and access the Calendar of a manager. In a similar way, all internal customers can view the whereabouts of other staff members. To speed the take-up of the system, we designed a tutorial guide on MS Outlook Calendar which was placed on the Council’s intranet alongside a bi-weekly newsletter called Grapevine. Individual training and a demonstration session was also given to the front-end customer service staff but most were already comfortable using the system. Perhaps understandably, one or two employees at Fylde have been reluctant to reveal their Calendar and availability details. However, these are the exception and the customer services team is trying to convince them that the facilities they use are for positive business purposes.

That said, the system is now available almost Councilwide. The real test of this initiative, though, is the response from customers, and the Council has recorded very positive feedback so far from customers and customer service representatives concerning the improvement the initiative has brought. Customer satisfaction levels with the service in June 2007 exceeded 95 per cent. At Fylde we have simply made full use of our existing software options; the costs of implementation have been minimal, and the returns have been measurable.