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Identifying Customer Demand – Folkestone & Hythe DC

Smarter Digital Services have been working with Folkestone & Hythe District Council to identify the customer demand broadly across all services, but specifically within Council Tax. The Folkestone & Hythe teams have been collecting data month-on-month since February and are building up some very useful data that will be able to be used beyond the scope of this project.

SDS have facilitated a workshop to better understand the process across the year that the Council Tax Team carry out to identify where the use of digital methods could assist in improving both time and cost efficiency. SDS have conducted industry research to identify possible solutions and the findings from where other authorities have implemented such a change to conventional methods.

In addition to this, SDS have also been user testing the following:

Council Tax notice and letter – testing the Council Tax Reminder Notice and Summons for Non-Payment of Council Tax letter to review how residents feel about their current format and layout.

The Council Tax area of the Folkestone & Hythe website – again, to obtain the feedback from our most important asset – our user.

As ever, the user testing provides a lot of very useful information that can be used by the Council to improve the way that we interact with our residents to reduce avoidable contact and encourage digital take up.