In
advance of the meeting Bobby Mulheir, Assistant Director: Customer
Experience, Digital and ICT presented background information and
outlined the key themes for the development of the new customer
experience and digital strategies. Members separated into three
workshops to discuss:
- Enabling a Digital Workforce
- Embracing Innovation to Improve the Customer
Experience
- Expanding Multi-Channel Service Delivery
The
notes collected from the first group’s session were shared
with the meeting and Councillor Tullett fed back on the
group’s discussions:
- Integrating platforms and scalability it was suggested the
system should be integrated enough to adapt to the customer’s
experience e.g. be intuitive
- Need for digital skills training and addressing the digital
divide
- Culture change and requirement for digital leadership by the
Council core part of transformation plan
- Consideration of digital voting in the future
- Lone working and staff safety to be considered
- Look to private sector partners to share their experiences e.g.
Royal Mail and Experian
- Need to monitor spend as this is a complex issue
- Need to respond to the future requirements of
schools
- Cyber security, GDPR not to be forgotten
- Future updating and maintenance
The
notes collected from the second group’s session were shared
with the meeting and Councillor Mrs Birch fed back on the
group’s discussions:
- drones could be used
for trouble shooting e.g. fallen tree issue and possible link to
planning issues but not to replace site visit instead enhance by
sharing video of site at a meeting
- Ecard used by
Customer Services and whether this could be available via mobile
phones or using an App to get through all parts of the Council all
the services can be displayed. Direct payments using your phone
e.g. bin.
- Opportunity to use
digital method of getting in touch with people to determine
customer satisfaction and get feedback to improve our
services
- Do not forget the
elderly who are not so digitally able
The
notes collected from the third group’s session were shared
with the meeting and Councillor Virgo fed back on the group’s
discussions:
- multichannel delivery to give the user many platforms to contact
the council which would be a better experience e.g. put them
straight through to the officer, several services linked digitally
to speed up and improve the system
- use of chat bots that some councils and utilities are using but
these can be very alien to the users
- IT
tend to design things for ICT and don’t design them for the
user so important that user has a big influence on designing the
system and user test the system.
- Communication to Councillors to enable them to support
implementation of new IT systems and answer residents’
queries.
- Both Wokingham Borough Council and Silva Homes have Tenancy
Involvement Teams and use this diverse group of individuals to test
system before it is implemented with the wider
community.
In response to a request that
disabled people within the community were not forgotten and
provided with support, Assistant Director:
Customer Experience, Digital and ICT explained that accessibility
was a key element of the strategy. It was accepted that there would
be some within the community that could develop digital skills and
even with support others who would not be able to access services
this way.
The Assistant Director:
Customer Experience, Digital and ICT thanked everyone for
participating, undertaking research in advance and providing
inciteful feedback which would help shape the
strategy for digital and cultural experience.