The Customer is our Business

25 April 2007

Helen FrancesHead of Customer Service

Salisbury DC

John RogersPartnership Programme Manager

Wiltshire Customer First Partnership

Where we now?

• South West Customer Service Managers’ Network – nearly two years old

• Two conference events attracting speakers from– ODPM (as was!)– IDeA– SWCoE

• Providing opportunities for CSMs to discuss issues that matter most to them;– Utilising business improvement to transform service delivery– Working together to share costs– Defining value for money– Shared (and comparable) metrics

South West already has…

Customer Service Managers who have been key in developing:

• Contact centres to deliver seamless customer service• Professionally trained customer service staff• Improved engagement with customers to gather better

quality information• Some shared service delivery• Improved business processes in front office• E-enabled access to service

Customer focus: what’s it about?

• Customer service, customer focus, customer insight… – jargon, a bandwagon, all the same thing?

• Customer focus: what you deliver, the way you deliver it, and how you are organised, has the customer at the centre, and from the start.– In a customer-focused organisation, all of it is or becomes

customer-focused.

• “Transformation”– where does this fit?– Transformation must be about the services we provide to our

customers. Customer focus is the destination and the route map. Customer insight (Varney*) is a key part of that: understanding our customer is relevant to all our business.

Customer focus: in whose interests?

• Cheaper for organisations? • Key driver for IT strategy?• Essential component of

CPA?• Easier for customers?• The best way to define

efficiency?• Key to defining our direction

of travel?

Cheaper for organisations?• Efficiency begins with the customer:

– Grossly inefficient, simply inefficient, and relatively inefficient.

• Examples: on-line school admissions, low-use e-services - cheap as chips?

• Non value-adding activity pours [lots of] money down the drain.

• Service defects (wrong/poor, inconsistent, late and/or inconvenient) pour [even more] money down the drain.

• Design and deliver around the customer: be rigorous, and become cost-effective.

Key driver for IT?

• IT strategy follows business strategy

• Customer focus as the business strategy ensures clarity for IT decisions, planning, priorities and success measures.

• And reduces frustration and wasted time and effort.

Essential component of CPA?

• Focus on front-line service is a given• Cashable efficiencies need to be linked to customer

improvements.• Transformation needs to go further and deeper in line

with customer requirements.• Customer focus is a key component in demonstrating

use of resources.• Defining direction of travel around customer-focused

outcomes.

Easier for customers?

• What remains difficult about resolving customer needs?

• Do some services still fail the common sense test?

• How are conflicts between different drivers managed?

• Strategic balance defined on clear principles.

• Staff know how their work is defined.

The best way to define efficiency?

• Needs to be able to respond to the efficiency agenda• Sound financial information and accurate costs• Evidence based approach to calculating total cost of

service delivery• Opportunities for smarter procurement, including joint

and sub-regional shared procurement strategies• Use of toolkits/benchmarking/cost comparators to plan

improvement

What MUST we have to get there? (critical success factors)

• CEs and other leaders who understand customer focus and are genuinely for it - “bought in” and actively promoting it. This creates the organisation climate in which customer-focused transformation becomes possible.

• Professionals with the expertise in customer focus and business transformation – enough of them, throughout our organisations.

• Evidence and measurement approaches which objectively compare and evaluate performance, and enable managers to make good decisions.

Moving forwards: we already have:

• Some CE/director support for customer-focused transformation.

• Some people in the region with expertise– not enough;– overloaded and/or crucial;– not connected with each other;– undeveloped.

• Some ideas about measurement– but not understanding, or enough skills;– nor commitment to measurement;– nor accepted and proven approaches.

Some suggested areas for future work

• Continue to develop SWCSM to enable CSM to develop skills that can be reinvested in the region by enabling development of

• Skills to fully engage in efficiency agenda• Skills to ensure that business transformation is

customer-focused• Body of shared best practice and support to individual

authorities and sub-regional partnerships• Skills development and communication via the network

across the region

Questions and discussion