Local government case study

Charnwood Borough Council required the implementation of a new corporate booking system. This would enable customers and local citizens to easily book Active Charnwood holiday programme activities and purchase Wild Card scheme memberships online via Charnwood Borough Council online scheduling website. Meanwhile, the council required an improved service for those customers who may need some support or prefer to use the existing traditional channels such as phone or face to face.

Project overview

Industry - Public Sector

Public Sector – Activity program and memberships

System Go Live Dates

Charnwood Borough Council’s system has been live since April 2019

System Performance

88% of all new orders are now made online

Industry - Public Sector

Public Sector – Activity program and memberships

System Go Live Dates

Charnwood Borough Council’s system has been live since April 2019

System Performance

88% of all new orders are now made online

Digital Transformation Report2

Challenges and Needs

  • All bookings were taken via the phone through the council’s contact centre during standard operating hours
  • The process was very manual and admin heavy. Spreadsheets and wall charts were relied upon to monitor bookings
  • Costs were calculated manually (including any discounts etc) and confirmations, guidance and instructions were sent on paper by post
  • Wild Card (WC) memberships were also made via the phone, though some were made in independently run leisure centres; paper applications were made and documents were sent in the post

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  • Any form completed at a leisure centre had to be handed in and checked by the team there, then sent to the council’s contact centre for manual input
  • Due to a lack of automation, there was a dependence on staff remembering all the steps of a particular processThere was no working renewal process in place and there was no robust database of members. The volumes of WC memberships appeared to be reducing.

Conclusion to Challenges

The above resulted in lengthy processes which were open to error, and difficulty in accurately understanding the WC membership in terms of volumes and customer base. Along with customer insight indicating that customers would welcome an online option, led the council to determine that the current process was no longer fit for purpose. An online solution sought to help facilitate the overall process redesign which also linked in well to meeting the Council’s corporate priorities, vision and values. A procurement exercise was undertaken to purchase a corporate online booking system and BookingLive were successful in bidding for the contract.

4 Step Process for Booking System Implementation

Step 1 - Scope & Discovery

Workshop sessions to review business case and gather key requirements Produce a Statement of Works including wireframes and technical specification Show and tell of proposed solution Sign off and agreement from key stakeholders

Step 2 - Project Delivery

Produce a Project Plan detailing key milestones, resources and deliverables Produce a User Acceptance Test Plan Produce a Training Plan Allocate resource and setup system tools Development delivered in accordance to agreed release cycles

Step 3 - Testing & Assurance

Internal automated and functional testing User Acceptance Testing by Client against the specification of works All other agreed testing procedures Quality Assurance review by key stakeholders

Step 4 - Go Live

Client training Complete internal go live procedure Documentation produced Deployment from staging to live environment A smooth and rapid return to business as usual IT Audit and Quality Assurance review Initiate support agreement and Service Level Agreements

Digital Transformation Report3

Device Flexibility

A user can create a booking to an activity, or purchase a membership from anywhere, on a device and 24/7.

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Digital Transformation Report4

Database Accuracy

Using BookingLive, Charnwood are now able to keep an accurate database of WC memberships that updated in real-time. It also means that users are able to schedule and book services with live availability, preventing double bookings.

Online Booking Solution

Robust Reporting

With a huge decrease in administrative tasks, the council are now able to use BookingLive’s in-depth reporting feature, to see which of their service offerings are the most popular and market them accordingly.

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Customer Satisfaction

In the summer programme, one customer booked 28 separate activities in a single transaction – out of normal office hours in around 30 minutes – it is thought that this would have previously taken one officer most of the day and several contacts with the customer.

85% were satisfied or very satisfied with the new process – no one was dissatisfied. 91% of those that answered were satisfied or very satisfied with the ease of booking. 88% rated the service good and above

The web team also reported a 104% increase in relevant web page hits.

Next Steps

We are on a mission to improve the way local government interacts with its users. Contact us today to see a live demonstration and to discuss your requirements further.