Text: Stefanie Klaassen

Photography: Jonas Mertens

CUSTOMER IN FOCUS 17

EXEMPLARY E-GOVERNMENT

Liesbet Vandriessche and Hans Verscheure - Kortrijk

18 CUSTOMER IN FOCUS

e braved the first real storm of the autumn to visit a city that knows how to deal with calls about seasonal problems. The Dutch city of Kortrijk has set up a service point for its 75,000 citizens. Many other organizations have asked to take a look behind the scenes at Kortrijk now its your turn.

From paperwork to 1777

Before implementing TOPdesk in 2004, Kortrijk city councils service departments used paper forms. The old system was basically a simple registration system without any follow-up. Feedback to citizens about the processing status depended on whether or not internal services returned a form, explains Hans Verscheure, Head of Service Processes. Kortrijk city council set up an innovative citizen service point in 2010. Service point coordinator Liesbet Vandriessche tells us more. Before the transition, we had a number of external complaints desks for various topics, such as roadwork. We wanted to keep things simple for our citizens, so we created 1777, a central portal.

give feedback, whether the incident is already resolved or will take a while to process, says Vandriessche. The 1777 staff can answer most incoming questions. However, sometimes more expertise is required, such as for calls about pavement maintenance or tree pruning, says Verscheure. If activities relating to the call have already been added to the general plans, the actual response might not take place for anything from a few months to a year and a half. It is easy to digitally forward such calls to the service in question. Afterwards, the service employee maintains contact with the citizen. Although their main tasks are quite technical, the portal encourages them to communicate directly with citizens. This is one of the ways that 1777 ensures that citizens stay up to date on the status of their incident.

incident reported twice, or are they in the same neighbourhood? Incidents are now registered unequivocally, granting the council better insight into citizen questions. There is more structure, making it easier for them to detect problems. For instance, if ten people call us to ask about our opening hours, there must be something wrong with how we communicate that information, says Verscheure. Were trying to better recognize and address these problems. We also analyse problems per neighbourhood. This is done with a link between TOPdesk and local population files. If someone tells us their name, we can immediately look up where they live. When someone calls us, we can use all known data to provide better services, and it makes the contact much more personal. TOPdesk is also linked to a GIS (geographical information system) application. This lets the employees see the incidents on a map, so they can better assess the situation and correlate activities. It is especially useful for those responsible for the follow-up, as they can check the (living) situation before they travel to the site.

One portal, 75,000 callers

All Kortrijk citizens can use 1777 to register incidents about anything happening in the city. They can do this via various channels, so there is always a method available that suits the citizens needs. Incidents are registered telephonically, via emails, digital forms, or personally. We register all incoming incidents in TOPdesk, while the online contact form automatically transfers the information to TOPdesk, explains Verscheure. Citizen service is a high priority for the council. We always try to respond to incidents as quickly as possible. We always

Problem Management 2.0

Vandriessche and her team receive almost 50,000 telephone calls a year. Combined with digital registrations, this results in almost 15,000 incidents. The employees at 1777 now know that certain citizen incidents literally depend on which way the wind is blowing. We are working hard to improve our assessment of seasonal incidents. Problems with leaves or slippery pavements how do we handle this? If we receive the same incident several times, is there a structural problem? Is this the same

Transparent government services

Citizens can use the My city portal to monitor the status of their incidents. All incidents can be tracked, regardless of how they were registered. The citizen can see

Text: Stefanie Klaassen

Photography: Jonas Mertens

CUSTOMER IN FOCUS 19

WE ALWAYS GIVE FEEDBACK

Liesbet Vandriessche 1777 service coordinator

the Request and Action fields, but also the operator, operator group and the operators telephone number, says Verscheure. They can also register a comment or ask a question. This is a huge improvement in our transparency. The introduction of this system was a serious change for both citizens and city council employees. It was a bit of a culture shock for the employees, says Verscheure, laughing. Starting in 2004, we were able

to register incidents and that worked wonderfully. All of a sudden citizens could do this too, and monitor every step. Making this internal information public took some getting used to. However, transparency is not always desirable, as Verscheure explains. When people complain about tree roots in the pavement, we discuss internally who will pick this up. However, who we assign the

task to isnt relevant to citizens. This is why we decided to also create a Notes field that is invisible for callers. This keeps the services transparent, but callers can only see the information valuable to them. The municipality of Kortrijk was honoured for its services at the last TOPdesk Symposium, but Verscheure and Vandriessche remain humble. Everyone does their best, and we will keep working to spread the word about 1777 and improve our follow-ups.

All Kortrijk citizens can use 1777 to register their calls or comments