RBDxP

Briefly describe the initiative/ project/service; please include your aims and objectives

Manchester City Council’s Resident and Business Digital Customer Experience team (RBDxP) are part of an ambitious ‘Future Shape’ internal transformation program to re-imagine citizen and business engagement. Deployed in only 7 months and replacing a legacy Microsoft CRM4 platform, the new Case Management is automating everyday Council processes, empowering employees, and managing unpredictability. Live in AWS Cloud, the service is more resilient, while enabling thousands of Manchester citizens to interact when they want, how they want, via their channel of choice.

What are the key achievements?

The objectives were: 

• – Simplify and automate the execution of simple and complex Council processes.
• – Create customer-initiated cases from self-service channels.
• – Transform the user experience by allowing citizens and businesses to interact with the Council when they want, how they want, via their channel of choice.
• – Enable Council staff to work seamlessly across customer service channels and benefit from a unified customer interaction history. 

How Innovative is your initiative?

Developed and deployed live in only SEVEN months, including integration layer.

• – Replaced Microsoft CRM 4, to create simple, agile citizen engagement.
• – Enabled users to interact using the most efficient channel and get a consistent outcome regardless of the mode of interaction.
• – Within one month of go-live, the new CRM was supporting 20,000 interactions among 500,000 citizens and businesses across Manchester.
• – Web is now the overwhelming contact channel of choice for users (65% use web, versus 28% for voice and 4.6% for inbound email).
• – Connects previously siloed services for faster, joined-up services delivery, including bulky collections bin requests, and pothole reporting/repair.
• – Increased service resilience in secure AWS cloud environment, reducing risk and ensuring compliance with Government frameworks. Case management has moved from being one of the Council’s most vulnerable platforms (CRM 4) to one of its most resilient (Verint/MuleSoft).
• – Facilitated adoption of innovative new services and processes, such as AI. 

What are the key learning points?

• – The programme used an Agile development methodology working in an agile way with Council colleagues and suppliers. 
• – Used data from citizen and stakeholder engagement to Introduce more rewarding citizen-centric services delivery. For example, people can now upload images to report graffiti and other issues 
• – Introduction of a corporate integration layer – CRM connects to the integration layer which connects to the line of business systems. This introduces a level of scalability not previously achieved. It also enables the greater integration of services and use of data for the benefit of residents.
• – As part of the deployment, the Council completed 160+ hours of service workshops, 152 processes were evaluated and refined, 82 Forms were developed, 274 test scripts written, 929 pre- go live defects resolved, and 13 user personas created.
• – Engagement: The Council also ensured that residents were kept engaged and have undertaken a number of resident engagement sessions to identify requirements and test digital processes throughout the development and implementation process. They have also commissioned accessibility and usability testing with a third party supplier. 

Additional Comments

• – The need to build, motivate, nurture a supportive and flexible team. 
• – The need to make hard decisions based on evidence and taking into consideration advice. 
• – The importance of the comms plan, no matter how often you say something you need to ensure communication. 
• – Time spent on “Research” is time seldom wasted: know the citizens, know the business, know the market.
• – Flexibility of thought is vital. 
• – Relationships with suppliers must be on a collaborative basis – you selected them!