As local authorities look for new ways of doing more for less, their understanding of what efficiencies can be made and where cuts may or not make a difference is crucial. Despite the pressing climate of austerity, the public still demand high quality services and if success is to be judged by the public themselves, then understanding them better could help better decision making.
But while customer insight (CI), which involves utilising a whole range of information, from customer journey mapping and feedback to performance data, is widely employed in the commercial sector, the public sector tends to use it more sparingly. But it has great potential and an exciting future proponents say.
"What tends to happen is that it's used on a service-by-service basis, so waste management looks at bin collections and adult services look at older people. It's not always the case that they join up," says Siobhan Coughlan, service transformation programme manager for Local Government Improvement and Development (formerly the IDeA). "Local authorities are using CI to varying degrees."
Coughlan says that some councils, such as Lewisham, have been able to get a better insight into services through innovative uses of CI. "In Lewisham they drew up a detailed customer journey map looking at repeat offenders and the "workless". What they discovered from giving someone a camera and tracking them over a few days was that people were getting support but not necessarily addressing an underlying issue. For example trying to get a single parent to go on courses but no one's asking about childcare," she says.
Other smart uses of CI include a smoking cessation project in Hampshire, a project looking at companionship for the elderly in Hertfordshire and an evaluation of how to improve revenues and benefits debt collection in Thurrock.
"I think it's giving us the impetus and clarity and is a place for services to come together," says Mel Stevens, head of customer insight at West Sussex county council, which has a dedicated CI team looking across the whole organisation.
"There are people who do analysis and people who commission consultations but we're doing more now by looking at the whole organisation. For example the children's services team had to do some statutory work into childcare provision and the team was looking at tenders of £40-£90,000 to talk to parents. But we've got the ability to do online surveys and run our own workshops."
Local authorities that have been expanding CI say they are taking the initiative and that it makes clear financial sense.
"We need customer insight more than ever," Stevens says. "To get savings, to see where there is too much bureaucracy, you need information and intelligent customer feedback. The crux is that it's evidence-based decision making. Local government has to make tough decisions and cuts. We could write ideas on the back of cigarette packs but we need to be smart about the decisions we make.
A matter of trust
Another issue that has made the use of CI more complex for local authorities is a question of trust. While a certain level of data collection by commercial organisations is expected in the public sector, if a little begrudgingly at times, the public is very protective of public sector-collected data, which includes information like medical and financial histories – but there has been misinformation about this says Stevens.
"In terms of community profiling, we don't have to use personalised information," says Stevens. "In social care, for example, we don't use names and case numbers. The data is anonymous." Some data, she says, is used solely to pick up duplication.
"We're developing a 'single view of customers'. We have libraries data and child education data so we've a software programme to connect them. So if a child registered with a library years ago and gave one address and then register at a school with a different address we don't actually have the correct data, so we pick this up. If someone's registered as dead it also stops another department sending out a letter."
While the LGID says developing customer insight does not necessarily mean collecting a wealth of new data Croydon council regularly monitors and updates information to improve and develop services after embarking on a customer satisfaction improvement drive.
"We keep a rolling 1,000 people we speak to twice a year," says Graham Cadle, director of customer services. "We were also one of the first local authorities to use handheld devices, taking them out and getting people talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of services. We do have to be careful that we have a representative sample. For example what people say on a rainy or a sunny day can be completely different."
"In the last two to three years we've put more priority into it. Local authorities have tended to use it every so often but we've tried to embed it in. Money is tighter for us and for residents. If we're going to have to make cuts it's absolutely critical to find out which services are most important to people.
A whole-place approach
Kieron Brennan, head of public sector business development at Vertex, says using CI to engage customers in co-designing services paves the way for radical changes, which can involve multiple partners including the third and private sectors.
Perhaps the most challenging, and exciting, part of CI is this "whole-place approach", says Stevens. "More councils are using CI as a business management tool and it's an area that evolving. If you're addressing older people you're going to need to involve the local PCT or if children, the local education authority. Authorities are starting to do this but they can't do it on their own...CI is going to be fundamental to how authorities do things but that's still not necessarily a commonly held view across the sector."
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