Our public include all residents covered by the Avon and Somerset Police, Somerset County Council and Taunton Deane Borough.
So far, we have delivered the following improvements in services for our residents:
- We have combined the Somerset County Council and Taunton Deane Borough Council's customer contact teams. The new combined team can now access, and share the same information so we can deal more quickly and effectively with each customer without the need to contact each council separately.
- In November 2009 we introduced a new world-class customer relationship management (CRM) system for handling our customer enquiries 85% calls are now answered within 20 seconds, and 90% of queries are sorted out with the first telephone call.
- The services the councils deliver through their websites have improved. We now have a new combined website which allows the public to access all council services, regardless of whether they want County or Borough council service.
- Online services have been improved, for example, an enquiry about a faulty street light or a pothole now dispatches an engineer to fix the problem without the need for further messages to be passed on to those services.
- The new combined website makes public access to all council services simpler, quicker and joined up through a one single "entry" point. The council is now have more on-line services available etc.
- The new CRM system also introduced a new complaints handling system which works across both councils.
- We introduced new customer service points in 10 libraries across the County.
