Draft Stage: 4/4
Digital and Customer Experience
Digital Principle #1: The City’s digital services starts with customer needs. Customers include our ratepayers, residents, businesses and service providers and it will be simple and fast for customers to get things done with the City of Canning through any channel.
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City of Canning customer service
The City of Canning has the vision of being a welcoming and thriving City. And delivering the highest level of customer service is core to achieving this vision. To do this we realise that how we deliver our services must be how our customers want us to deliver those services. And we realise that our customers want options when interacting with the City of Canning, they want to;
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Phone us
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Visit us in person
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Email us directly
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Interact with us online, either via
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our website
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social media
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Currently while the City provides each of the above communication options they are not integrated, and because they are not integrated often times the customer service experience is disjointed as we do not have the ability to 'tie' each customer interact interaction together to create a single, seamless experience.
Omni-channel customer service
“At its very core, the omni-channel experience is about ensuring that no matter where a customer or prospect interacts with your brand, they are experiencing that brand in the same way.” (Houston, 2018, http://jonathanhouston.co.za/omni-channel-experience/)
While the City provides opportunities for customers to interact via email, online and social media, access is disparate and does not encourage a seamless experience across platforms. This type of access is called a multi-channel customer service. By integrating our different communication channels we will provide our customers with a consistent and seamless customer experience thereby ensuring a positive experience, and move to an omni-channel experience.
To achieve omni-channel customer service the City will simplify the customer service experience. Information will be easy to find and customers will be empowered to find their own answers, and if customers can't find answers they can easily submit an issue or request to the City. And following this initial interaction all subsequent interactions with the City will not require the customer to repeat information as City staff will have access to all the history and information related to the customer.
To move from a multi-channel environment to an omni-channel experience, the following customer service expectations are implied:
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Customers are able to interact with the City via the channel of their choice.
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Customers are able to alternate between channels seamlessly.
Examples of omni-channel customer service the City is intending to implement;
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A customer completes an online request for a bin service. The customer might want to follow up the progress of the request by phoning the City and when they do call the Contact Centre agent will be able to immediately respond as to the status and expected completion of the service request. Similarly, if the customer logs the request initially over the phone they can then log into the City's portal to check on the status of the request.
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A customer books a hall for a birthday party over the phone through the City's Contact Centre. After booking over the phone the customer will be able to confirm or change the booking online. Again, the same will occur in reverse whereby if a booking is made online the customer can phone, or visit, the City and expect to be able to modify the booking quickly and easily.
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A customer visits one of the City's leisureplexes to book a swimming lesson for a child. Afterwards the customer phones the City's Contact Centre to change the booking. Subsequently the customer can log in online and view the progress of the child's swimming lessons.
By ensuring the integration of systems the City is providing consistency of processes and the non-duplication of information thereby improving the efficiency of the service, and the overall experience for our customers. By adopting an omni-channel customer service experience customers can expect to interact with the City via their channel of their choice and to alternate between channels seamlessly.
Digital experience
The City's digital experience will be is an interrelated collection of people, content and services provided across the City's digital assets, and we will use the following principles as we design, develop and implement our Digital Experience;
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We will develop content and services that deliver a digital experience focused on facilitating customers to engage effortlessly with the City anywhere, anytime.
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Our digital experience will be driven from a customer centric perspective with a fundamental focus on valuing our customer’s time.
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We will review and consolidate our online channels, managing them as a whole, breaking down silos to ensure a seamless conversation across the channels. Content will appear on the correct channel, in the correct format, and at the correct time.
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We will develop digital content and services strategies that will guide their creation, delivery and governance across our digital channels.
Lean content
Our content strategy will adopt lean principles to maximise customer value whilst minimising waste. “Lean Content “ can be defined as:
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Content that is part of a continuous optimisation cycle where the content is not the end goal, rather how well the customer’s needs were addressed.
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Ideas guided by customer personas flow into content production which creates data that defines how well that topic, type of content and channel all performed.
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These insights then go back into the “loop” of continuous content development.
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The insights that are learnt from constant idea testing drive the whole content production machine.
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Minimising waste on producing content that does not address customer needs is lean content management.
We will seek out best practice knowledge to guide us in building our digital experience and adopt agile management and development processes to build a flexible and responsive team that will foster innovation in providing digital services.
Digital services
The City of Canning provides a number of services across a range of departments. We recognise that by developing and implementing a number of online services we can be more efficient, productive and deliver successful outcomes for our customers. These online services will include;
... the ability for our residents to log requests and issues online for the following;
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Waste bins
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Vehicles
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Litter
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Holiday watch
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Fire and other hazards
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Dog attacks and nuisance animals
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Tree issues
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Pests and vermin
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Park, road, kerb, verge, footpath, signage and all types of asset maintenance
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New signs, footpaths, streetlights and other assets
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Crossover damage
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Graffiti
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Food and noise complaints
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Pool inspections
... the City's ratepayers are able to perform the following online;
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Pay rates and see payment history and current balance
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Set up rates payment plans
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Change and update contact details
... our customers are able to perform the following online activities;
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Lodge and track new animal and renewal registrations
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Lodge and track building/planning applications
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Lodge and track health permit applications
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Lodge and track verge permit applications
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Lodge and track crossover applications
...our residents and ratepayers provided with detailed information about their property and surrounding community;
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Bin and verge collection days
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Local facilities such as parks, libraries, leisure centres, community facilities
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Minor and major projects
... an integrated and diverse online booking system enabling our customers to;
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View and book a wide range of City facilities including halls, courts, parks, swim school, leisureplex classes, activities and events.
Digital spaces
In expanding our presence across digital channels for communication and service delivery brings with it a responsibility to ensure the people in our community have equality of access to those digital mediums.
The City will look to leverage the strong physical presence in our community of our leisureplexes, libraries, CREEC and youth centres to continue innovating in providing a seamless and equitable digital experience which will complement our traditional communication channels of face-to-face- and phone conversations
The City of Canning plans to develop world class digital experiences within the City’s leisureplexes, libraries, parks and other facilities. We will do this by providing free and fast Wi-Fi at each of our major indoor and outdoor locations, including;
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Riverton Leisureplex and Library
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Cannington Leisureplex and Library
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Bentley and Willetton Libraries
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CREEC and Youth Centre
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Admin building and outdoor event area
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Whaleback Golf Course
The City also recognises an opportunity to use Wi-Fi to communicate directly with our customers at each of the above locations, using the opportunity to provide both specific localised information about each site, but also cross promote other sites and events that are happening across the City.
Additionally the City will provide digital display screens at each of its major physical locations, including outdoor LED screens located along major roads, each one centrally managed and with the ability to display relevant information to visitors at each site as well as also cross promoting other sites and events across the City.
Current needs
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Varying and inconsistent communication and information delivery across the City’s communication channels.
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Disparate and non-integrated systems holding customer data.
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Inefficient processing of various services.
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Online service development is hampered due to policy and legislative requirements.
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Current web platform stifles online service delivery.
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Public Wi-Fi is underutilised as a communication tool.
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Visual display and smart screen technologies are not integrated.
Actions
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Identify core sources of customer data.
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Build integrated systems that enable the flow of data.
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Develop agile and rapid online services.
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Deploy integrated public Wi-Fi and visual displays that are integrated and centrally managed.
Expected benefits
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The City's customers can expect a consistent, seamless, smooth and efficient customer service experience.
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The City will ensure consistency and integrity of data.
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The City will improve its efficiency and productivity.