Customer strategy

Our Best City Ambition outlines our ambition to tackle poverty, inequality and improve quality of life for everyone who lives, works or visits Leeds.

We want to make a difference in improving people’s lives while at the same time transforming, in line with our Team Leeds approach, the way we work. This will support us in addressing the significant budget challenges we are facing, with a forecast budget gap of £130m over the next 3 years.

To achieve our Best City Ambition, we have developed a vision for customers to set the course for our transformation journey which will improve quality of life for our residents through:

• supporting our customers to contact us in an easy and accessible way
• helping us tailor services to meet the unique needs of individuals and address specific challenges
• building trust between the council and the community by providing a contact experience that customers value
• addressing inequality through feedback processes and the ability to make data-driven decisions to continuously improve what we do

The council’s guiding principles

The council has developed a set of guiding principles to which all change activity needs to align. The guiding principles fit with the council’s organisational plan. They will be embedded into everything the council does, including being built into every service and all transformation activity which will be undertaken to meet our vision.

1. Good neighbours - building mutual respect and understanding through kindness and valuing input and experiences
2. Community power - empowering people to generate positive changes and tackle systemic inequalities
3. Innovation impact - being evidence-led and sparking creativity to succeed in a digital world
4. Healthy society - pursuing equity and recognising societal impacts on health at every life stage
5. Social responsibility - promoting opportunities to create social value and engage with the local community
6. Strength based - strengthening prevention by focusing on what people can do

What our vision means

Our vision is to make it easy for all customers to interact with us by delivering an excellent customer experience.

Transforming our services and achieving our vision will improve things for customers, colleagues and the wider council, with a clear vision for the future underpinning everything we do and make sure the council is fit for the future.

Customers

Our customers find it easy to access council services, which are digital first in approach.

Non-complex queries will be resolved at first contact, increasing trust and freeing staff to provide specialist support.

They have a personalised, seamless customer experience, with their expectations being managed throughout their journey.

Non-complex queries are resolved at the first point of contact, increasing the time colleagues have to support those requiring more specialist support, building trust in the council.

Colleagues

Our council colleagues understand the role they play in delivering customer excellence in an empathetic way.

They are equipped with the skills and tools necessary to meet most customer needs with minimal time and effort.

Leaders across the council are advocates for customer excellence, and colleagues are empowered to continuously improve how services are delivered.

The council

There is a customer-first culture across the council, with a cross-council approach to delivering joined up services.

Services are customer-centric, with service delivery and technology decisions being driven by customer need and experience.

More services are digitised, with consistent service patterns underpinning consistent, seamless customer journeys, and data is being used to gain insights into customer behaviour and track outcomes.

Successful transformation of services is dependent on the support of our partners and our communities. We will work with our partners and communities to align services and deliver a better customer experience. We will work collaboratively to co-produce and co-design services to deliver better experiences. We will make it easy to work with the council and keep our partners and communities updated on progress of cases.

Challenges

However, there is a gap between the vision and where we are today. There are key challenges that we need to address to close this gap.

Customers

Customers are not able to self-serve online effectively, with 83% of contact being made by more expensive telephone and face to face channels.

Customer expectations are often not managed, with limited understanding of who our customers are, or their needs.

Customers often need multiple contacts to complete a request, with customers having limited understanding of where they are on their journey.

Colleagues

Lack of customer vision and performance standards means staff do not always understand their role in helping customers and delivering a good customer experience.

Disjointed technology and limited knowledge management make it difficult for staff to manage customer queries effectively.

Leaders are not all aligned on a council-wide approach to customer, with a different views of what good looks like.

The council

There isn't currently a clearly defined council-wide customer vision and strategy around which to align services.

Directorates tend to operate separately, leading to fragmented service access and delivery, and disconnected customer experiences.

Digitisation and transformation of services can be slow, with an inconsistent approach to service design or service delivery.

We therefore need a single, council-wide customer strategy that clearly sets out what the council needs to do to make it easy for all customers to interact with us by delivering an excellent customer experience by delivering customer-centric services, embracing digital, and embedding a customer-first leadership and culture.

Our customer strategy

We will make it easy for all customers to interact with us by delivering an excellent customer experience.

What we need to do:

• deliver customer-centric services
• embrace digital and data
• embed customer-first leadership and culture
• customer design principles

How we will know we have achieved our vision

Customers will experience services differently in the future

We have developed a set of customer design principles to support delivery of the council’s customer vision and address the frustrations our customers face. These will help guide decision making throughout the transformation programme and provide a test of customer-centricity when we redesign services.

• easy access - information and services are easy for customers and colleagues to access
• digital first - customers can transact digitally with services
• consistent experience - service patterns are used to provide a consistent customer experience across all channels
• personalised delivery - the needs of different types of customer are considered
• first contact resolution - customer queries are resolved at the first point of contact, whenever possible
• manage expectations - customers understand what they need to do, what will happen, and are kept updated
• tell us once - customers only need to tell us and give us information once
• minimise steps - customers take the minimum amount of time and effort required to achieve resolution
• seamless experience - technology is used to reduce manual effort between stages of the journey

The below describes the future experience our personas will have and the impact this will have on colleagues and the council based on the design principles.

Meet Carol

Customer design principle: easy access   

• individual/resident
• 85 years old
• retired

What does this mean for Carol?   

• support is accessible from my rural community
• online journeys are simple and easy to understand, even without much digital experience
• nominated others can access digital services on my behalf

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?   

• reduced contact as some less digitally capable customers self-serve some online journeys (though not all)
• better customer satisfaction rates among customers who might find it more difficult to access to the council (e.g. rural)

Meet Johan

Customer design principle: digital first   

• individual/resident
• 59 years old
• project manager

What does this mean for Johan?   

• It’s easier to complete journeys end-to-end online
• online journeys feel more intuitive, straightforward and complete
• I can manage my queries in my own time, and don’t need to speak to somebody or wait to hear back

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?   

• reduced contact as more deflected to self-serve
• better information gathering from online channels (e.g. document upload, proactive info gathering in forms)
• less manual intervention at different journey touchpoints as more completed end-to-end online

Meet Abby

Customer design principle: consistent experience   

• individual/resident
• 27 years old
• part-time worker at the council

What does this mean for Abby?                 

• I’m not as likely to chase up to speak to a human – i’m confident in the online self-serve journey
• I can pick up where i left off via a different channel

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?                 

• more journeys deflected to digital self-serve
• better satisfaction among customers switching channels

Meet Kabir

Customer design principle: personalised delivery   

• individual/resident
• 33 years old
• warehouse operator

What does this mean for Kabir?                 

• my language and any other accessibility needs are taken into account and tailored to me
• I’m offered information on relevant family services because I have children
• the council is better at predicting what I need and solving problems more quickly

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?                 

• ability to understand and serve customers in different languages
• able to provide better customer experience
• reduced cost via fewer complaints / follow-ups

Meet Sandy

Customer design principle: first contact resolution   

• business/organisation
• 45 years old
• officer in charity sector

What does this mean for Sandy?                 

• I can get more things done at the first try
• I don’t always have to wait to get in touch with someone I’ve worked with before or have an existing business relationship with

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?                 

• reduced time and cost to serve via fewer hand-offs
• improved customer experience for businesses/organisations
• less pressure on individuals with existing relationship with organisations

Meet Tony

Customer design principle: manage expectations   

• individual/resident
• 55 years old
• unemployed

What does this mean for Tony?                 

• It’s clearly explained to me in the hub what to expect next, and how I can get any updates
• I can specify my channel preferences for any updates to make sure I don’t miss important information
• I don’t need to keep coming back to the hub to chase – I know when there’ll be an update

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?                 

• reduced follow-ups (e.g. in hubs, calls to contact centre) from customers before update is available

Meet John

Customer design principle: tell us once   

• partner organisation
• 50 years old
• school administrator

What does this mean for John?                 

• me and my colleagues don’t have to repeat information, and know what the others have already shared – it’s all available in our business account

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?                 

• improved ability to serve multi-user / organisations customer accounts, without the need to repeat information
• more clarity on what users have already shared, reducing cost to serve when repeating the same interactions with multiple users

Meet Bobby

Customer design principle: minimise steps   

• individual/resident
• 45 years old
• small business owner

What does this mean for Bobby?                 

• I don’t have to use many different accounts or systems for my business and personal queries
• I have a single set of login details for everything I need from the council

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?                 

• reduced need for customers to seek support via contact centre
• fewer hand-offs required, even if relating to numerous service areas (e.g. resident and business owner)

Meet Tina

Customer design principle: seamless experience

• individual/resident
• 55 years old
• unemployed

What does this mean for Tina?

• I can pick up from right where I left off in the hub, on the phone or online
• staff in the hub can see what I’ve done at other locations or over the phone

What does this mean for colleagues and the council?

• better view of the customer across channels
• easier to serve customers in the hub or signpost them to other channels once ready

We will transform across nine focus areas

We need to deliver customer-centric services, embrace digital and data, and embed a customer-first approach to leadership and culture to address the gaps in achieving our vision. This strategy outlines how we will do this against each of those core areas.

• deliver customer-centric services
• provide consistent access to services across channels
• deliver a consistent experience of services across channels
• deliver personalised services to customers
• embrace digital and data
• provide end-to-end digital resolution
• standardise and automate processes
• develop a single view of customer
• embed customer-first leadership and culture
• enable effective decision making and risk management
• grow cross-council alignment to customer vision and values
• equip colleagues with skills, knowledge and tools

We will deliver customer centric services

1. Provide consistent access to services across channels

• implement a unified customer front door that will standardise the way customers access services and how their queries are managed

2. Deliver a consistent experience of services across channels

• design our access channels around customer need, taking a digital first approach to interactions and creating a consistent experience across all channels

3. Deliver personalised services to customers

• design our services using a consistent, customer-centric approach, focusing on why and how customers want to access services

We will embrace digital and data

4. Provide end-to-end digital resolution

• implement new digital customer journeys with end-to-end digital fulfilment for simpler enquiries and transactions

5. Standardise and automate processes

• use consistent service patterns and integrations to enable processes to be automated

6. Develop a single view of the customer

• implement a single CRM to integrate data from line of business systems and provide a single view of the services a customer is accessing

We will embed a customer-first leadership and culture

7. Enable effective decision making and risk management

• implement the governance that enables the right people to make decisions, speeding up transformation of services

8. Grow cross-council alignment to customer vision and values

• embed robust stakeholder engagement and change management within the customer transformation programme

9. Equip colleagues with skills, knowledge and tools

• develop the skills, knowledge, tools and culture that will be required across the Council to deliver the customer strategy

The front door transformation will drive outcomes against our customer vision

Customers - vision outcomes

Increased digital self-serve

• consistent access to services
• consistent experience of services
• personalised services
• end-to-end digital resolution
• single view of the customer

Higher customer satisfaction

• consistent access to services
• consistent experience of services
• personalised services
• end-to-end digital resolution
• standardise and automate processes
• single view of the customer

Fewer complaints to services

• consistent access to services
• personalised services
• end-to-end digital resolution
• standardise and automate processes
• single view of the customer

More first contact resolution

• consistent access to services
• consistent experience of services
• personalised services
• end-to-end digital resolution
• single view of the customer

Colleagues - vision outcomes

More time spent on value-adding activity

• consistent access to services
• consistent experience of services
• personalised services
• end-to-end digital resolution
• standardise and automate processes
• single view of the customer

Improved skills maturity

• consistent access to services
• skills, knowledge and tools

Improved job satisfaction

• consistent access to services
• end-to-end digital resolution
• decision making and risk management
• cross-council alignment to customer
• skills, knowledge and tools

Empowered colleagues

• consistent access to services
• personalised services
• decision making and risk management
• cross-council alignment to customer
• skills, knowledge and tools

The council - vision outcomes

Customer-first culture

• personalised services
• decision making and risk management
• cross-council alignment to customer
• skills, knowledge and tools

Increased speed of transformation

• standardise and automate processes
• decision making and risk management
• cross-council alignment to customer

Reduced cost of managing contract

• consistent access to services
• consistent experience of services
• personalised services
• end-to-end digital resolution
• standardise and automate processes
• single view of the customer

Improved customer maturity scores

• consistent access to services
• consistent experience of services
• personalised services
• end-to-end digital resolution
• standardise and automate processes
• single view of the customer
• decision making and risk management
• cross-council alignment to customer
• skills, knowledge and tools

How we will measure customer strategy success

This performance framework provides the basis of how we will measure and track customer strategy outcomes and that we are delivering against our vision.

Strategic outcome	Measure	Vision alignment
Increased digital self-serve	Proportion of contacts received across different channels, website drop rates, proportion of telephone calls answered	Easily accessible, digital first services
Higher customer satisfaction	Customer satisfaction survey scores, utilisation of technology that meets customer needs	Personalised, seamless customer experience
Fewer complaints to services	Number and nature of complaints received	Expectations managed throughout journey
More first contact resolution	Proportion of queries that do not require follow-up	Non-complex queries resolved at the first point of contact
More time spent on value-adding activity	Staff capacity released through transformation	Those requiring more specialist support receive it / Colleague time and effort
Improved skills maturity	Future skills maturity assessment and scorecard	Colleagues are equipped with the necessary skills and tools
Improved job satisfaction	Staff satisfaction survey scores	Colleagues understand the role they play
Empowered colleagues	Staff satisfaction survey scores, customer culture scorecard	Colleagues empowered to make decisions and improve services
Customer-first culture	Customer culture scorecard	Customer-first culture
Increased speed of transformation	Service readiness assessments, volume of customer journeys digitised	More services are digitised with consistent service patterns
Reduced cost of managing contact	Proportion of contacts received across different channels	Customer-centric services
Improved and established customer maturity	CX maturity assessment scores	Whole vision