Essex County Council - Customer Assessment

The Challenge

Essex County Council like many local authorities have a driving ambition to improve customer service and service experience. As a large county authority a fundamental challenged rested in know what to do, where, when and with whom. Customer management and the customer experience was understood to be complex, and still innovating within the local government arena. The council wanted to understand what was achievable and the impact this would have on service as part of their 'Customer Excellence Review'.

The Solution

WCL worked with Essex County Council using their CMAT for Public sector assessment framework for customer management. A full 'as-is' analysis was conducted using interviews, data analysis, workshops to build a comprehensive picture of the way customer management was being handled. Hundreds of Essex people were involved in the process of building this picture.

Using the data and information gathered WCL were able to benchmark Essex County Council against eight hundred other global organisations for customer management. The results gave Essex a deep insight into what they were doing well, and what they needed to improve.

The Result

Essex was presented with a comprehensive analysis, benchmarking and mitigation plan for improving the customer experience. The plan helped them to see what was achievable in the immediate and mid terms, and areas where the complexity was to seen to introduce high levels of risk, and so should be approached with caution.

This is what the client said:
"I wanted to say is how much I've appreciated the way in which you have personally worked with us in delivering what I believe to be a really excellent review product to our organisation. Your knowledge of the council, sensitivity to the politics and pressures within it and your skill in providing us with constructive challenge and practical advice have all been invaluable. Because of all of this I think Essex is in a much better position to transform customer excellence than it was two months ago. Thank you". Georgina Stanton, Head of Communication and Customer Relation

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