Falkirk Council Case Study
Complaints Handling Solution
Falkirk Council is a unitary authority which provides all local government services for the Falkirk Council area in Scotland. Covering 112 square miles, it has a workforce of 7,000 and serves a population of around 149,000.
The Challenge
The Scottish Executive recently initiated a program called "Customer First". As part of this initiative it is recommended that Scottish Councils deal with 75% of core service requests by citizens at first point of contact. In line with this initiative Falkirk Council has a strategic imperative to manage complaints in a timely and efficient manner. Although complaints received by the Council were dealt with by individual departments, there was no centralised electronic complaints process in place. Moreover there was no single view of complaints across the Council that allowed types of complaints and actions raised to be measured consistently. As a result, managing customer responses in accordance with the Council's Performance Indicators (PIs) was extremely difficult.
"Addressing the handling of complaints and enquiries was very much at the forefront of our objectives as it is an area where our citizens expect efficiency and responsiveness," said Fiona Campbell, Head of Policy and Performance Review at Falkirk Council. "Sword Ciboodle allows us to improve this area of our business, while laying the foundations to apply the platform to all customer service areas over time."
The Solution
Sword Ciboodle has provided Falkirk Council with a CRM platform that allows this challenge to be addressed incrementally. The solution has been designed to compliment Falkirk Councils complaints process and provides the following features:
- One system which centrally facilitates tracking, logging and management of complaints
- Case handling capabilities which allow business users to:
- Categorise complaints
- Define who is best suited to handle each complaint
- Specify expected response times
- Reporting capabilities to ensure adherence to PIs and Customer Service Standards
- Consistent and disciplined approach to managing complaints
The Result
Falkirk Council's advanced complaints management system has provided the Council with the ability to monitor the volume, type and status of complaints. The system has resulted in increased customer satisfaction levels, improved staff efficiency and access to information.
Implementation of the CRM platform, bespoke Complaints processes and training of the end users was achieved within a 14 week timescale.
The Future
The complaints handling system is only the first step in an ongoing project designed to meet the Scottish Executive's Customer First strategy.
We are striving to manage customer contacts across a range of diverse services and within decentralised office locations. Sword Ciboodle's solution allows us to provide a fully integrated service and therefore a better experience for our customers through interactions across multiple services.