I was impressed again this year by the quality of the both the planning and the creativity shown in omnichannel customer when I judged recently at the Selligent awards
What really struck me this time was the breadth of organisations that are now using this sort of technology to both improve the customer experience and to reduce the cost of keeping customers happy.
A case in point is Lyon City. It’s not a flashy marketing campaign, but I really liked the common sense application of a tool like Selligent to improve efficiency and customer service.
Cities are not usually the most technically advanced. And Lyon City was no exception. It used to ask 200 local schools to ask 40,000 parents and school-children to fill in multiple multi-page forms with their contact details, medical conditions etc, in order to register their choices of school meals and extra-curricular activities.
They switched from a paper-based system to a data-driven solution with Selligent. Now families can easily check, and only need to make occasional changes to their central file rather than filling in the same data on multiple forms. They get sent emails with links to the PC- and mobile-enabled site, and only those families for whom there is no email address are sent paper letters and forms. They also get automatic reminders if they don’t fill in the form, again saving costs, time and frustration.
Understandably, Lyon City is excited about the potential to roll out this sort of technology into other parts of the city’s public services.
I think we will see many more public services organisations upgrade out-dated processes for customer-focussed thinking and technologies .
I know it’s not as flashy as some of the other entries, but I really liked the common sense approach to making life just a little easier.