Realising Best Practice Customer Self-Service

Local Authority Electronic Service Delivery

Best Practices for Customer Self-Service Framework

Realising Best Practice Customer Self-Service

About Asidua

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Featuring research from

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Best Practices for Customer Self-Service FrameworkSelf-service and self-care investments are rampant, and their enterprise uses are still emerging. We provide a framework for customer service managers for planning and ensuring that customer self-service and customer self-care initiatives contribute to bottom-line results.

Key Challenges

• When customer self-service/self-care is not associated with differentiation, it cannot be a formidable tool for enhancing services or reaching new audiences via new and emerging channels.

• The benefits expected from customer self-service/self-care deployments are not always realized, even after extensive investments, due to a lack of focus on best practices.

• Organizations consistently struggle with increasing customer adoption of Web-based self-service deployments. Most often, the problem is not with first-time registration to use the systems, but with the ongoing use of the systems.

• Often, the knowledge maintenance component of Web customer service (WCS) is underestimated and not planned for properly, resulting in poor customer experiences.

Recommendations

• Think of customer self-service/self-care as a technique to achieve cost savings while providing great service by fueling customers' intrinsic need to try to do something by and for themselves.

• Ensure there is an opportunity to escalate to a live agent (e.g., Web chat) built into the process to ensure a seamless customer experience when deploying unassisted WCS channels.

• Determine the products that are and are not suitable for Web and mobile-based channels; the more-complex offerings might be better-suited for phone or face-to-face service delivery.

• To measure the value of customer self-service and customer self-care activities, first, survey the customer to determine the baseline of engagement metrics. After implementing, track the changes to the baseline and other key performance and productivity indicators, and plan for making adjustments and iterations to your strategy.

Local Authority Electronic Service Delivery is published by Asidua. Editorial content supplied by Asidua is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is used with Gartner’s permission, and was originally published as part of Gartner’s syndicated research service available to all entitled Gartner clients. © 2014 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. The use of Gartner research in this publication does not indicate Gartner’s endorsement of Asidua’s products and/or strategies. Reproduction or distribution of this publication in any form without Gartner’s prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see “Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity” on its website, http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp.

Asidua Ltd10 Weavers CourtBelfastBT12 5GH+44 (0) 28 9072 5000 ccp@asidua.com

locations:Belfast, N.IrelandBirmingham, UKDublin, Ireland

Local Authority Electronic Service Delivery

Research from Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00248650,

Johan Jacobs, 19 February 2013

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Strategic Planning Assumption

Through 2015, at least 80% of organizations that fail to orchestrate their customer self-service implementations will incur higher customer service costs and will not achieve the savings and benefits expected.

Introduction

Many organizations approach their customer self-service and customer self-care initiatives tactically by responding to immediate or urgent channel deployment requests from managers, business units and/or customers. This often results in poor product selection and wasted implementation development and deployment efforts and resources, because the enterprise does not focus on a larger or organizationwide customer self-service strategy and does not give much thought to developing a structured framework.

A siloed approach to deploying customer self-service technologies has the potential to increase the five-year total cost of ownership (TCO) by as much as 55%. An overall vision and strategy for customer self-service should include multiple parallel initiatives to measure, manage and improve the performance of related service channels; perform analytics across the various Web channels; and solicit feedback about the customer's experience when using a channel.

What is Customer Self-Service/Self-Care?Customer self-service (also often referred to as customer self-care) solutions are deployed by organizations to enable customers to conduct transactions on their own or find information via some form of Web or mobile-based interaction. There are two common methods of self-service (see figure 1):

1 To give customers access to applications (such as billing, account maintenance, online banking, online travel bookings, etc.) through a Web interface, referred to as transactional self-service. Transactional self-service solutions are typically from an ERP offering, or could be custom-built or homegrown applications. These applications are typically unique to each organization, with two organizations in the same vertical industry (i.e., finance) having completely different transactional system solutions.

Transactional self-service is defined as the processing of transactions, which is typically part of a transactional self-service or e-commerce application. A customer would typically log on to an organization's website, authenticate himself or herself, and then be able to perform transactional activities.

In transactional self-service, the customer would typically log on to an organization's website or mobile application, authenticate himself or herself, and then be provided with a number of transactional-type services to perform a variety of functions. Providing customers with access to the organization's back-office applications through transactional self-service is often as simple as "Webifying" or providing a Web interface for the applications. The most important consideration for transactional self-service is to ensure that the chosen customer self-service implementation has the necessary tools and technologies to integrate the front end it provides with the enterprise architecture and back-end transactional systems.

2 To give customers access to a knowledgebase of information via a specialized search engine and support channels (such as Web chat, email response management, video chat, etc.), referred to as Web customer service. WCS can be delivered as a suite of applications or as an individual application. A WCS product is typically a functional component of a larger solution called the customer engagement hub (CEH). It needs to integrate with existing information and other customer service solutions in the contact center. The four most common forms of integration are with customer service, call center technologies, enterprise applications and telephony components.

WCS is defined as a set of applications and technologies that enables an organization to provide customer service through Web-based service channels (see figure 1). It can be an assisted channel (Web chat or social) or an unassisted channel (virtual assistant [VA]); however, in all cases, the interaction starts on the Web through the provision of customer-enabling tools. A Web-initiated interaction could be passed to a customer service representative (CSR) if the requirement becomes complex or if there is a need for a more in-depth intervention.

In WCS, customers can either work unassisted via a Web interface to find information or support from a knowledgebase, or receive agent-assisted service, like a Web chat. Both these options have the ability to reduce the number of phone calls to the contact center.

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Source: Gartner (February 2013)

figure 1. Transactional Self-Service Versus WCS

Implementing WCS can yield a variety of benefits, with reduced costs for customer service activities being the primary objective. However, it must be properly implemented to fit into a wider customer self-service strategy, and this starts with proper planning. Gartner estimates that, through 2015, at least 80% of organizations that fail to plan their Web self-service implementations will incur higher customer service costs, and will not achieve the savings and benefits expected.

There is a fair amount of hype surrounding customer self-service deployments, with some vendors promising to deflect as much as 90% of the telephone calls that an organization receives and to service those same customers via the Web. Organizations expect to have their customer self-service systems replace costly technical support and customer service implementations, with less expensive, automated systems, and, in the process, save lots of money. However, the reality is quite different. It is often difficult to measure the actual call deflection rate, and, in some cases, not all the calls deflected from the call center will actually be serviced by the customer self-service tool. For example, some might be resolved on social networks or in peer-to-peer communities, and some might be resolved by agent-assisted services, such as a Web chat interaction.

Some assisted channels (such as Web chat) may be more expensive than unassisted channels (such as a knowledgebase

or a VA), and, in some cases, if incorrectly deployed and best practices are not followed, an assisted channel may even be more expensive than a phone call with a customer.

The biggest challenge with most customer self-service solutions arises when the transactional self-service solution (e.g., online ticket booking and online banking) does not have an equivalent Web or mobile-based supporting channel. If the customer needs assistance, then he or she often has to use the phone channel to obtain support. This approach increases the number of phone calls into the call center, as opposed to reducing that number, thus negating the potential savings.

Does this mean that customer self-service does not work? Not necessarily. It means that customer self-service does not work if it is implemented poorly. However, it can and has worked when implemented correctly. This is a sign of a maturing market, and organizations need to better understand the two legs of customer self-service (i.e., transactional self-service and WCS), as well as the proper ways to implement them. When properly implemented, customer self-service cannot only reduce the number of telephone calls, but can also effectively eliminate or decrease the rate of growth of the calls. When properly implemented, customer self-service enables organizations to save money from better customer service, reflected in proactive and automated interactions.

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Analysis

Make Sure Customer Self-Service is Needed — and WantedSurvey your customers to find out what they really want. Is customer self-service the answer to what they are asking for? If not, then consider other solutions that will better fit their demands, such as interactive voice response (IVR). Furthermore, determine whether your customers are computer-, Web- and mobile-literate. Will they know how to use the system? These questions, when answered by your customers, will identify where to focus customer self-service initiatives and strategy.

Consider the Best Self-Service Architecture for Your OrganizationArchitectural considerations are paramount when deploying a customer self-service solution, whether transaction-focused or WCS-focused. Review whether you already have a knowledgebase for your technical support or customer service organizations, because you may not be able to successfully integrate the WCS solution into your current products. Search for the method that best fits with your architecture, processes and culture. Take the following steps:

1 Develop a vision for what you want and need.

2 Work with your system architects to develop a strategy for now versus later.

3 Reach out to vendors to find the best solution to fit your strategy.

Plan for Maintenance Before DeploymentMaintenance of these customer self-service systems — especially a knowledgebase solution — can be burdensome, particularly for content management and updating, and for improving content based on usage reports. When you are trying to automate customer service, ensure that the applications and knowledgebase you provide via the Web offer the right information at the right time. This means that your systems need to be constantly updated — in some cases, even in real time. Will your systems allow for this? Do you have the necessary personnel to properly maintain the content for the knowledgebase self-service systems? Ensure that you can maintain the system in real time, or as close as possible to it, before you decide to implement the solution.

Create an Escalation ProcessCustomer self-service solutions are not perfect. On occasion, the customer will need assistance from a CSR. Plan to escalate unassisted channels (such as a VA) to an assisted channel (such as

a Web chat or a phone call) to enable the customer to escalate the interaction as needed. Find out from customers what channels they would prefer for escalation, and have them ready. Make sure that the response time and processes for escalation are clearly posted for your customers to learn, or they will abandon the self-service channels and revert to phone-based support. When you pass interactions from one channel to another, it is important to also pass along the data from or the context of the interactions, so that customers don't have to repeat themselves to the new agents they deal with.

Integrate With the Existing Customer Service ApplicationCustomer service is changing. Many new WCS implementations use a software as a service (SaaS) architecture, in which all channels are serviced equally and quickly. Implementing an on-premises transactional self-service solution without considering how to integrate a SaaS-based WCS solution will result in poor customer experiences and a disjointed self-service architecture. The current trend shows that 62% of organizations still prefer to deploy on-premises solutions for self-service, as opposed to SaaS solutions.

Create a Killer Marketing CampaignCustomers won't know about the existence of your customer self-service offerings unless you tell them about them. To achieve the expected benefits, you will need to do more than just build a killer system; you will also need your customers to use it. You must create a marketing campaign that will not only let them know about the existence of the system, but will also inform them of the benefits of using it. This can be achieved by adding text upfront in the IVR, to market the self-service solutions available as well as to specify how to reach particular content. Marketing can also be achieved by the agents each time they engage with customers, advising them that it is not necessary to phone into the contact center because there are self-service channels available.

Focus on a Great Customer ExperienceImplementing a customer self-service strategy is the first step toward a better model for serving your customers via the Web and mobile. If properly implemented, and if all the information is available equally via all channels, then customer self-service will yield a positive result for the organization and customers. It is important to evaluate each and every product and service for its suitability to be delivered via a transactional self-service solution or to be supported via a WCS channel. Not all products and services are made for the Web and/or a mobile device — matching the appropriate channel with the appropriate product and service is critical to service success.

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Realising Best Practice Customer Self-ServiceIntroductionAs an organisation which specialises in making customer

contact easier for local authorities, Asidua has spent many

years working alongside Council Service Lines and Customer

Service officers in order to better understand the challenges

they face on a daily basis. Challenges such as:

• The ongoing need to reduce the cost to deliver high quality

customer services.

• The steadily increasing pressure to comply with evolving

Government and Industry standards.

• The ever-evolving customer service expectations as citizens

become more accustomed to online shopping and account

management ‘norms’.

Asidua realises that to address these, often conflicting,

challenges councils need to take a strategic and best practice based approach to customer service. An approach which will

permit the councils to:

• Take a holistic approach to achieving their Multi-channel

Target Operating Model i.e. the processes, people, systems

and data needed to deliver excellent customer service

across all channels.

• Take a corporate approach by addressing the customer

service needs of lines of business throughout the council.

• Take a future-proofed approach that meets the customer

service needs of today, yet is easily scalable and

configurable to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

• Take a cost-effective approach by using “out-of-the-box”

functionality that can be fine tuned by trained council officers.

To adopt such a strategic and best practice based approach,

councils need to make use of modern and flexible technology

solutions which underpin the delivery of customer service.

The generic terminology for such a modern and flexible technology

solution is an Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) platform. The

traditional government definition of Electronic Service Delivery is:

“The provision of government services to the customer through

the internet or other electronic means”.

Service delivery can either be through direct provision to

the customer (self-service) or mediation, where a customer

services operator acts on behalf of the customer. The definition

of an ESD platform carries an implied requirement that, where

possible, electronic service delivery is automated.

An Industry leading ESD platform will enable councils to

realise a best-practice based Customer Self-Service solution,

allowing authorities to adopt a strategic approach to migrating

customers to use lower cost self-service channels.

Asidua offers local authorities just such an ESD platform in its

Customer Contact PlatformTM (CCP).

Realising a Council’s Multi-channel Operating ModelAn ESD platform enables councils to take a holistic approach

to achieving a multi-channel customer service vision, by

providing technology that enables the council to leverage the

extensive capabilities they already hold within the People,

Processes, Systems and Data involved in the delivery of

council services.

People

An ESD platform provides access to the information and

transactional services needed by people; including self-service

customers, mediating advisors, back office delivery teams and

service managers.

CCP achieves this through the use of modern, intuitive

web-portals that provide ready access to the information and

services required to deliver and manage service. CCP Portals

provide useful features such as:

• A searchable knowledgebase; enabling customers and

advisors to quickly find information about the services the

council offers, and find support and advice when needed.

• A Service Launch Pad; allowing customers and advisors to

easily find the service needed.

• A suite of pre-built e-forms which address many local

authority needs “out-of-the-box”, enabling users to

Source: Asidua

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figure 1. Meeting The Needs of Local Authority Stake Holders

complete transactions at the first point of contact. CCP

e-forms seamlessly incorporate key steps such as choosing

a location on a map, booking an appointment, and taking

payment all within one seamless user journey.

• An e-forms engine which is “channel aware” and reuses the

same e-forms across all methods of contact, standardising

service delivery regardless of channel. CCP e-forms guide

users through the process, capturing the precise information

needed to deliver service ‘right first time’.

• Work queues which enable delivery teams to easily access,

allocate, progress and update their service delivery tasks.

• A built-in reporting engine and report builder which allows

service managers to easily measure, manage, and improve

“end-to-end” service delivery performance.

• A “drag and drop” e-forms designer which allows trained but

non-technical council officers to create and modify portal

e-forms.

Processes

An ESD platform permits Councils to automatically drive

standardised service delivery by providing support for a

wide range of local authority business processes. This

standardisation makes it easier for a council to save money

and provide improved user experiences, by enabling more

proactive and automated customer service interactions.

CCP supports automated business processes through:

• An Enterprise scale workflow engine which is “channel

aware”, reusing the same workflow across all customer

contact channels.

• Pre-built workflows that address a wide range of common

Local Authority services. CCP workflows can readily be

configured to orchestrate all the manual and automated

steps required to deliver requested services such as:

• Creating/updating a case in CRM.

• Creating/updating a task in a back office system.

• Tracking the progress of back office tasks, reflecting

any updates in CRM and sending the customer

status messages by SMS or Email.

• A “drag and drop” workflow designer which enables trained

but non-technical council officers to create and modify

service fulfilment workflows.

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figure 2. CCP Consolidated Work Queue

DataAn ESD platform helps councils to use their data:

• More effectively - by connecting people and processes with

the data they need when they need it.

• More efficiently - by proactively driving data quality

improvements.

CCP achieves this by:

• Checking customer supplied information at the point of

capture against trusted council data sources such as the

council’s corporate gazetteer.

• Pre-loading front end service request e-forms with council

held information - saving time and preventing mistakes.

• Presenting council advisors with a single view of the

customer account on information dashboards.

• Providing authenticated customers with access to a history

of their services and previous transactions using the ‘My

Account’ views.

SystemsAn ESD platform helps Councils to leverage the investment

already made in technology, by providing the necessary tools

and technologies to integrate user facing “front ends” with the

wider system architecture and back-end transactional systems.

By using an ESD’s built in integration capabilities, a council

can readily realise a true “end-to-end” customer service

solution. By providing this integration capability an ESD

enables the council, and third-party, systems estate to realise

a true “end-to-end” solution.

CCP achieves this through:

• A Message Router - to ensure that customer requests are

delivered to the right place at the right time. For example,

the message router receives a validated service request

message from the front-end customer or employee portals

and ensures that the correct workflow for that service is

activated and has all of the required customer details.

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Source: Asidua

figure 3. CCP Preloads Information Into E-Forms

• “Adapters” - to seamlessly connect workflows with the

council’s existing system estate, and provide better access

to the information and transactions they offer. CCP offers

“Adapters” for a wide range of common local authority

systems, facilitating improved bi-directional system

communication

• “End-to-end” Tracking and Logging - which allows Service

Level Agreements to be implemented, monitored and, when

at risk of breach, escalated.

Corporate Approach to Addressing Council Service NeedsIn adopting a holistic approach to service delivery, an ESD platform

enables a council to take a corporate approach by providing a

solution that allows Councils to readily offer a “pan-council” range

of standardised services across all contact channels.

Multiple Service Lines

An ESD platform assists a council in “on-boarding” new service

areas by extending the range of supported services across the

full range of council service areas through:

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Source: Asidua

figure 4. CCP “Drag and Drop” Process Designer

Reusable Components

An ESD platform encourages and promotes a “build once, use

often” model which sees core e-form and workflow components

re-used across service areas and channels.

CCP achieves this through, for example, e-forms which use

a core set of generic, reusable “controls”. These controls can

easily be configured to suit the needs of new service areas and

request types, using the CCP web based configuration tools.

CCP provides a wide range of controls to, for example:

• Capture and validate addresses against trusted council

address sources.

• Choose locations from embedded maps.

• Book appointments from corporate calendars.

• Take payments through integration with the council’s

payment solution.

Pre-built “Service Packs”

To reduce cost and expedite business benefits, an ESD

platform typically offers “Out-of-the-Box” support for a wide

range of “end-to-end” business processes.

CCP achieves this through “Service Packs” which can be

promptly deployed to suit many Council needs. CCP “Service

Packs” comprise preconfigured:

• e-Forms – to capture and validate customer requests.

• Workflows – to drive automated fulfilment of those

requests.

• Adapters – to enable easy interaction with existing council

systems.

CCP “Service Packs” focus on a range of common local

authority service areas from Environment & Streets to

Revenues & Benefits.

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Source: Asidua

figure 5. CCP “My Account” View

Common Service Access Tools

A critical aspect of “taking on” a broader range of service areas

is ensuring that the ESD platform provides easy access to

those services for customers and advisors.

CCP addresses this challenge by providing a range of built-in

portal features specifically designed to make it easier for users

to quickly find the right service. For example, CCP provides

expertly designed navigation tools such as:

• Service Launch Pad – where users can navigate a

hierarchical view of all council service areas, carefully

structured to align with council and government service

definition standards.

• Top Tasks View – where users can access a short-list of

common service request types.

• Free Text Search – enabling users the freedom and

flexibility to quickly search for the service by its name.

• A-Z of services – where users can filter and navigate the

range of available services alphabetically.

Multiple Contact ChannelsAn ESD platform enables Councils to support a broad range

of contact channels ensuring a consistent and standardised

customer service experience.

CCP achieves this though a range of built-in features including:

Consolidated Work Queues

CCP presents advisors with a filterable, sorted and easily

navigable set of contacts and tasks for processing.

CCP work queues consolidate contacts from:

• Emails - through integration with the council’s Email system.

• SMS - through integration with the council’s SMS provider.

• Paper - through integration with the council’s EDRMS solution.

• Walk In - through the CCP Reception functionality.

• Social Media – through integration with Facebook and

Twitter Feeds.

• Allocated work tasks and reminders for this advisor e.g. a

back office request for more information.

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Channel Aware E-Forms and Workflows

CCP is a true multi-channel solution, handling customer

contacts using the same channel aware e-forms and workflows

for the type of service being requested.

CCP e-forms and workflows are channel aware and can be

configured to offer customised views and options for each

channel and service type as defined by the council.

For example, a citizen accessing the council portal using their

mobile device sees a responsive design of the portal; giving

the citizen the same CCP functionality of the desktop portal but

designed specifically for mobile devices.

CCP handles all mediated or non-mediated contacts in just the

same manner, regardless of the source channel. This means

that requests made by email or through social media sites are

handled just as if the person had telephoned the council.

Requests submitted by online customers, bypass the

mediation advisors but are handled using the same e-forms

and fulfilment workflows.

CCP fulfilment workflows process each request according to

council-defined business processes and rules designed to

specifically handle that type of service request.

Future Proofed ApproachAsidua understands the dynamic and challenging environment

where councils operate. We realise that any ESD must meet

the business needs of today, but still provide flexible scalability

options to meet the evolving demands of tomorrow.

CCP has been designed ‘from the ground up’ to provide a wide

range of scalability options to ensure that CCP solutions can

easily cope with tomorrow’s business needs.

Source: Asidua

figure 6. CCP Supports Mobile Through Responsive Design

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Features of the CCP solution which underpin future proofing

include:

Easily Maintained

CCP business processes are easily maintained by trained

council officers. CCP provides “drag and drop” e-form and

workflow designers which enable trained but non-technical

council officers to modify existing business processes and

even create brand new ones. When it comes to building new

processes, CCP gets council designers off to a flying start by

providing a suite of template e-forms and workflows which can

be easily customised to meet specific business needs.

Easily Extendable

While CCP can be easily configured and extended by trained

council officers, Asidua understands that sometimes councils

want a helping hand. CCP provides that helping hand through:

• Off the shelf “Service Packs” – a suite of pre-built e-forms,

workflow and system adapters which address a wide range

of council service needs “out-of-the-box”.

• CCP Services – with CCP, help is always to hand through

CCP services. Asidua can rapidly deploy CCP experts to

work with council officers to configure CCP to meet evolving

business needs.

Built on Industry Recognised Platforms

CCP is built on the Microsoft’s Connected Government suite

of technology platforms including SharePoint, Dynamics CRM

and SQL Server. Microsoft’s technology platforms are industry

recognised, and provide councils with the security of using

recognised products, with access to a large pool of readily

available technical skills, to support any future customisation

which councils may require.

Evolving Product Roadmap

CCP as a product is actively developed and enhanced via a

planned and published Product Roadmap. Customers can

have confidence that CCP is backed up by an experienced and

professional team which includes a:

• Dedicated product management team.

• Dedicated product development team.

• Dedicated Support team.

Cost EffectiveWhen deploying an ESD, councils must be confident of realising

business value, while keeping solution costs under control.

Source: Asidua

figure 7. CCP: Built On Microsoft Platforms

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CCP has been designed to simplify customer contact for

councils, and a core driver of this approach is to ensure that

CCP solutions are cost-effective.

Using CCP, councils will achieve their goals in shorter time

frames at greatly reduced cost. This is achieved through a

combination of the flexible range of components and options

which CCP offers including:

• A wide range of core Customer Self-Service Components.

• Pre-built business processes for a wide range of local

authority service areas.

• Low cost business process configuration by trained but non-

technical council officers.

Core Customer Self-Service Components

CCP offers a complementary suite of core technology

components which seamlessly integrate to form a multi-channel

transactional customer service platform. CCP components

provide the core customer service components including:

CCP Customer Portal: A customer facing, online information

and transactional Service Portal. CCP Customer Portal enables

online customers to access a broad range of council-held

information and transactional services in a safe, secure and

controlled environment. Capabilities include:

• Audited, role-based access, controlled by multi-tier customer

account management including federated identify.

• Configurable e-forms with a range of supporting templates

covering standard Apply For It, Report It, Pay For It and Find

It scenarios.

• Knowledgebase and Search Functionality.

• Integrated controls for payments, mapping and

appointments

CCP Employee Portal: A council advisor Service Portal

providing role-based access to a wide range of council-held

information and services. Advisors can quickly find customer

records, offer information about council services and submit

service requests on behalf of a customer. Capabilities include:

• Employee optimised access to the same e-forms shared

with the Customer Portal but providing enhanced

employee-only functionality, using standard CCP controls.

• Enquiry and Case Management support.

• Workflow driven Information Dashboard displaying

customer, location and account-centric information.

• Audited, role-based access.

CCP Enterprise: An Enterprise-scale Business Process

Management and Reporting platform which provides:

• A Message Router enabling secure and reliable “end-to-

end” service request routing.

• A Workflow Engine which enables the completion of

council-defined service request fulfilment steps – including

a “drag and drop” workflow designer and template

workflows addressing a range of local authority scenarios.

• A suite of system “Adapters” for a range of common local

authority systems enabling easy reuse of the council’s

existing systems.

• “End-to-end” service reporting using both pre-built and

bespoke reports.

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Asidua Dynamics CRM: A Local Government specific

configuration of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Asidua Dynamics

CRM is designed to aid local authorities in:

• Managing their relationships with customers.

• Understanding their customers and the services they

request.

• Maintaining an accurate record of customer’s contact

information and preferences.

• Recording all customer interactions across all channels.

• Tracking progress of customer service requests from point

of contact through to successful service delivery.

• Gathering management information and business

intelligence across customers, channels, services and

performance.

CCP MDM: A robust and reliable Master Data Management

platform which provides:

• “Out-of-the-Box” loading, matching and maintenance of

customer and address data from council LLPG and Council

Tax sources into CRM.

• The ability to readily extend the indexes to provide a “Single

View” of the customer record.

CCP F2F Queue Management: Provides face to face (F2F)

queue management functionality supporting the F2F customer

contact process from reception through to advisor.

• Provides reception quick query and contact queuing forms.

• Maximises staff efficiency by using information gathered at

reception.

• Presents queue status and customer notification through

large screen displays.

CCP CTI: Provides the ability to connect CCP to the Council’s

telephony system. CCP can then automatically use data

gathered from the telephony system to:

• Automate customer search by caller number.

• Use dialled number and incoming queues to narrow

process selection.

• Use additional data entered via the telephone system to

automatically drive process or complete data entry.

Pre-built Business Processes

CCP provides the option to rapidly deploy working “end-to-end”

transactional services using CCP pre-built “Service Packs”.

CCP Service Packs provide a combination of preconfigured

e-forms, workflow and system adapters to allow councils to “hit

the ground running”. CCP’s suite of Service Packs continues

to evolve and currently includes a wide range of common local

authority business processes spanning from Environments &

Streets to Revenues & Benefits processes.

DIY Business Process Configuration

With CCP, councils have the option for easy DIY configuration

of e-forms and workflows to enhance existing services or build

brand new ones. Trained but non-technical council officers can

take on DIY configuration using CCP’s built in “drag and drop”

design tools. Council designers can reuse template e-forms

and workflows to rapidly fashion council-specific variants or

build new ones from scratch.

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AnalysisGartner provides a framework for customer service managers

for planning and ensuring that customer self-service and

customer self-care initiatives contribute to bottom-line results.

The Asidua Customer Contact PlatformTM makes it easier for

the council to achieve their Customer Self-Service vision by

addressing many of these analysis points as follows:

Analysis Point CCP Capability

Consider the

Best Self-Service

Architecture for your

Organisation

CCP provides an enterprise-scale Customer service solution which provides built in transactional self-service

capabilities. CCP also provides self-help capabilities through features such as an online knowledgebase.

CCP provides a wide range of tools and technologies to enable easy integration with the wider suite of

technology components which the council may wish to use. For example CCP Portals can easy be configured

to integrate with custom Web Customer Service components as required.

Plan for

Maintenance Before

Deployment

CCP makes it easier for council web teams to manage online content through built-in features to author,

approve and deploy council content quickly. While the underlying SharePoint platform provides an industry

recognised solution for content management, CCP layers on more value added features such as “SharePoint

Ribbon Overrides” to, for example, prevent “pasting” of non aligned formats, making it much easier to maintain

a consistent look and feel across all council content.

Create an Escalation

Process

CCP provides built in support for online customers by providing easy access to online help and advice when

required. However, if a self-service customer needs more help, CCP allows them to save their partially

competed e-form, and transfer to a mediated channel for support. A council advisor can then pick up the

partially completed e-form and progress it on behalf of the customer.

Integrate with the

Existing Customer

Service Application

CCP provides a wide range of tools and technologies to enable easy integration with the wider suite of

technology components which the council may wish to use. CCP has been designed and built using the

principles of a Services Oriented Architecture and adopts open standards design principles throughout. As a

result, CCP can be easily configured to integrate with a wide range both “On Premise” and “Cloud Hosted”

WCS components.

Create a Killer

Marketing Campaign

CCP makes it easy for the council to promote a shift to self-service channels by helping council advisors to

promote and enable citizen portal accounts. For example, when a customer contacts the council CCP prompts

the advisor to ask if the customer would like an Online Portal account. CCP then guides the advisor through a

simple suite of e-forms to create the portal account while the customer is on the phone.

Focus on a

Great Customer

Experience

CCP enables councils to focus on excellent customer service by making it easier for customers to access a

standardised and consistent set of information and transactional services, irrespective of the channel used to

contact the council.

CCP also makes it easier for council advisors by providing a consolidated view of the customer, their existing

services, and recent service requests through the Employee Portal’s Information Dashboard. Advisors can also

submit requests on behalf of the customer using the same suite of e-forms and workflows which are used by

self-service customers.

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Case StudiesAsidua has extensive experience realising ESD solutions based

on CCP for a wide range of GB local authorities. Consider for

example:

Milton Keynes Council

Milton Keynes Council is an authority responsible for many

public services provided for residents, businesses and visitors.

As part of a wider transformational project the Council was

seeking to create significant improvements in its online

e-enablement and take-up by citizens and other external users

of its services. Milton Keynes decided that to achieve this aim

it needed to invest in new technologies, including software

products/tools that would aid systems integration, in order to

drive transformational change within the Council and improve

efficiencies in service delivery.

To help achieve their e-enablement goals, Milton Keynes

has implemented the Asidua CCP solution for employees

and citizens across all channels. The project started in

environmental and highway services and is being expanded

through 4 phases to cover all customer facing services (e.g.

Housing, Registrations, Revenues and Benefits).

The initial phase of the project handles around 500 – 750

service requests per day. All of these requests are now being

passed directly to the back office system with no further

manual processes. Citizens get automated feedback when

requests are logged, closed or updated.

Over the course of the programme Milton Keynes Council is

anticipating savings of more than £2M; progress to date is on

track to exceed these savings.

Leeds City Council

Leeds City Council has also recently chosen Asidua’s CCP

as their ESD platform, to support the delivery of the Leeds

Customer Access Strategy.

Leeds City Council was looking to engage a partner who:

“Understands and can contribute to the Leeds business vision

through delivering and implementing cost effective, innovative

solutions and services on an ongoing basis”.

Leeds found just such a partner with Asidua.

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About AsiduaAsidua is a specialist supplier of customer contact solutions to

GB local authorities. Our portfolio includes offering specialist

customer contact solutions that utilise: CRM based solutions,

Customer Portals, and Back-office Automation. As a result of the

experience which Asidua has gained within this sector, Asidua

has developed a tried and tested customer contact solution,

known as the Asidua Customer Contact Platform™ (CCP).

Asidua CCP is a suite of components which together make

customer contact easier for councils and their citizens. Asidua

CCP solutions make customer contact easier across a wide

range of channels including the Contact Centre, Web, Email,

SMS, Mobile, Social Networking and more.

Asidua CCP makes it easier for a council to innovate, by using an

integration led approach to providing business applications that

support customer contact. Using CCP allows a council to better

leverage the power of their existing processes, systems and data.

The Asidua CCP solution is a Local Authority specific

customisation of the following industry recognised technology

platforms:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM

• Microsoft SharePoint

• Microsoft SQL Server

The Asidua CCP is recognised by Microsoft as a realisation of

its Citizen Service Platform concept (now known as Connected

Government Framework), as evidenced by the case study here.

Asidua itself is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

Many GB Local Authorities have chosen to use the combined

power of the complementary Asidua and Microsoft platforms.

By doing so they have chosen a route which allows them to

use industry recognised technology platforms, combined with

the CCP architectural approach, thereby enabling them to

use Service Oriented Architecture techniques to better realise

“end-to-end” customer relationship management solutions.