5 Points of Transformation for

Local Council Services

Citizen-centric era wants optimized services, engagement and efficiency.

The profound impact of technology has made it evident for every local council and public sector organization to adopt new ways of working. The recent digital upsurge across the world demands government to be present for their citizens on all platforms and channels to engage with them, notify them and update them. The channel shift transformation is becoming a necessity for customer satisfaction, increasing productivity and financial outcomes.

The local council faces a number of issues to meet the expectations of the people and communities. Perhaps, councils are under several constraints as well, which makes it more difficult to maintain equilibrium.

Our study suggests that digital transformation in local council and national government can be the game changer with emphasis on following points –

A public sector organization has a huge responsibility to maintain a cordial relation with all the citizens and ensure that they are heard. As one can witness the increased use of Smartphone and the mobile apps to accomplish most of the work, it is vital to have native council apps for your citizens. A branded, bespoke and user-friendly council app which provides the following functionalities for rendering all the services available for citizens can be significant:

  • Raise a service request

  • Check bin collection dates

  • Support payment

  • Allows image & document upload

  • Fetches exact address using GPS coordinates

  • Get all the information about Council, Councilor & Contact details

  • Notifications about public events

The multi-channel approach has taken over the conventional procedures of interaction and engagement. There are multiple channels for the citizens to make their requests, complaints and suggestions to their councils. Although it may come from several channels, it is required to be merged at a point allowing council back office agents to be answerable to them without repetitive process. A contact centre with the following set of features can do the needful:

  • Add and edit any new request

  • Add and edit customer profile

  • Capture all details and history of service request

  • Do a knowledge search to respond

  • Easy search of requests and customer

  • Support email center for automated replies

  • Get all the social posts, chats and create a request as needed

Monitoring every request, setting up the schedule for workers, paying attention to every customer and every request requires efficient handling. The desk executives have to ensure a smooth workflow with proper coordination and management. Manual handling of every task, managing piles of paper, rigorous repetitive tasks, addressing different team of workers consumes a lot of time & reduces productivity. Automate the functions using Service Desk software with following features-

  • Configure e-forms

  • Assign tasks for specific requests

  • Workforce tracking

  • Allocate incoming service requests as per skills & availability

  • Send group broadcasts and push notifications

  • Assign notes, activities and capture interactions

  • View reports and analytics

Instant response, quick service and fast actions are the need of the hour. As important it is to allow citizens to raise a ticket for their service request in the easiest way, offering them with a quick resolution is necessary. Instead of assigning work orders to the field service teams in the office, causing a delay of hours in the process, a cloud-based solution that facilitates the service desk executives to allocate worker right on the device through a mobile app can be beneficial with features like –

  • Multi-Platform availability

  • Auto-routing with LLPG address database

  • Offline Integration

  • Cloud data synchronization

  • View the entire schedule of priority

  • Update Status and add notes

  • Lone worker with check-in button

A council has a number of departments as well as third party organizations to provide service and achieve citizen satisfaction. It is mandatory that working with plenty of people, requires proper storage of data records and the linked associations. Also, various public assets have to be maintained, along with keeping every piece of information up-to-date. A master data management module having below-mentioned functionalities may be the perfect solution to overcome all data-related challenges-

  • 360-degree view of data

  • Relationships between people themselves and organizations

  • Dynamic data fields

  • Capture every detail of the person including photo

  • Dashboard reporting for decision-making

  • Role-based security access for data protection

  • Single place to view and edit any information

Mobile apps, web exploration, cloud computing, social & digital media and big data— are knocking the doors of a world with everything being made available online.

The government sector and most of the local council have started its journey to match the generation, but the time demands a faster move. The challenges faced by the policy makers have to be met smartly and get the benefits of costs, work productivity, and citizen to ensure their continuity in the longer run. If you are looking forward to discussing more, leave your details or meet us on Facebook, Twitter, Google plus, and Linkedin.

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iTouchVision is one of the world's leading cloud-based service provider with innovation & excellence at its base. The company has made its presence in all business verticals with its technical & operational capabilities to enhance the working of private & public sector organisations. Our products, ranging from Web-based software to Mobile applications have made their mark globally to transform the way work is completed.