The SDS blog

Waverley Borough Council (WBC) is currently reviewing how they respond to customer enquiries and rebuilding processes, putting the customer at the heart.

SDS recently attended the first meeting of the Smart Kent and Medway working group. We discussed some potential pilot projects we could work together on, all of which utilise information and technology to improve outcomes for residents.

The LGA Behavioural Insights Programme has just announced the 8 councils who were granted £20,000 to develop behavioural insights and new ways to nudge residents’ behaviour. A positive change in residents’ behaviour can reduce the pressure on strained councils. The...

You may recently have seen a report issued by automated accessibility checker Sitemorse on Accessibility across local authority websites. The report sets out the position as at Q4/2019 across the sector and examines how local authorities are managing the timeline...

As 2019 comes to an end, we have been reflecting on our busy year. Catherine returned from maternity leave, we gained a new project administration assistant, Rebecca, built our new website, attended round-tables and conferences and we have continued to...

The aim of an IVR system is to enable users to help themselves without human involvement and to route customer to the right call agent, who can satisfy their needs, on their first attempt. An IVR system can have great...

Dom recently made the trip to Church House in Westminster to take part in iESE's autumn conference. The conference itself brought together people from different public authorities and agencies to discuss and share the various digital projects that have been...

SDS conducted a Google Analytics training session with colleagues from the Communications team at Tandridge District Council. After taking the team through the basics of understanding their Google Analytics data, we quickly identified a crucial metric that could really help...

Hats off to Kent Connects for a great Smart Cities conference! The excellent collection of speakers helped us to understand how the Smart City agenda is relevant to local authorities and how we at SDS can get involved. Lost in...

Chatbots are capable of supporting key service areas. In particular, they are aimed at high-contact areas with repetitive enquiry types. Also, chatbots can improve the user experience by providing a seamless journey The key requirements for a chatbot in local...

Sevenoaks District Council requested an analysis of their housing advice web pages with an emphasis on improving how customers reach specific housing forms. We created personas to illustrate the customer journey for a customer who would be homeless tonight and...

Gravesham Borough Council recognised an opportunity to improve market traders experience by implementing a market management and booking system for Gravesend Borough Market. SDS completed a best practice research project on their behalf.

Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council (TMBC) are redesigning processes by capturing the customer journey. This is to gain a clear understanding of the end-to-end steps to provide services to residents.

Smarter Digital Services hold a series of workshops every year, and on request, to share our knowledge and help local authorities be more efficient and customer focused. A popular training session that we have been delivering is usability testing. Continuously...

We are assisting Tunbridge Wells Borough Council with IVR messaging for their new waste service which will be starting at the end of September. As the calls to the Council will be substantially higher during the initial period, SDS have...

This summer we decided to redesign our website and freshen up its look and feel. Why not visit the website and let us know what you think: https://smarterdigital.info

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council have a new waste contract with some key changes happening at the end of September. The TWBC Communications Team asked SDS for some Google Analytics training to enable them to understand the traffic through the TWBC...

SDS have completed the user testing of Tandridge District Council’s new online waste forms prior to going live. The user test focused on the ‘Report It’ function leading to online waste reporting forms including fly-tipping, dead animals, assisted waste collections...

SDS have reached the half-way point in the Skype for Business project for Mid Kent Services. The key aim of the project is to capture and analyse feedback from staff and other data sources to assess how well the partnership...

SDS carried out research into contact centre best practices and alternative customer service channels as well as a review of Gravesham Borough Council’s IVR telephone system. The research involved a comparison of IVR menus with other councils, a list of...