From Portal to Touchpoint: Brescia S Concept of Citizen Relationship Management

Situation

Brescia is the second largest city in Lombardy, Italy, with 194,000 inhabitants. Situated on the main route connecting northern and central Italy, the city is a major industrial and commercial centre.

According to the terms of a new General Regulatory Plan, Brescia is working for urban regeneration and improving the quality of life for its citizens. The key aims of the plan are to make the city ‘friendly, sustainable, and open to dialogue’ through projects that improve the urban environment.

Part of this initiative requires enhanced communication between the local authority, citizens, and businesses. In 1996, the City Council set up press and public relations offices to promote new levels of dialogue in Brescia. A complex infrastructure, including IT systems for electronic communications, was also established as a key point of contact for local people.

The Internet is one critical tool that the City Council uses to communicate with citizens. In recent years, the volume of content related to projects and public services in the city has increased dramatically. As a result, the City Council decided to reorganise its entire communications infrastructure to address this growing demand.

In September 2003, the City Council began work on an integrated contact point where citizens and businesses can access information on local projects and services and express their points of view. The aim was to deploy a helpdesk for all online council services, support communications across multiple channels, and establish standards and workflow procedures for publishing online materials.

The City Council had 13,000 Web pages on its Internet site in 2002. As a result, the ability to prioritise information was a key requirement. The council also wanted to reduce the number of online pages overall and manage content more effectively.

Solution

The project, known as TouchPoint, involved a large-scale reorganisation of City Council online information and services. Working with trusted technology partners Altevie Technologiesand Brain Force Software Spa, the council deployed a new infrastructure based on Microsoft® Content Management Server 2002 and a Citizen Management System built on technology from Microsoft Business Solutions.

Sergio Colosio, Manager of the Internet/Intranet Unit, Brescia City Council, says: “Content Management Server 2002, which was deployed by Altevie Technologies, made it easier to prioritise the information we wanted to publish on the new site. It also helped us design and implement the entire structure more effectively and converge contents for several disparate IT systems.

“In addition, the use of Content Management Server 2002 and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 in the back office significantly simplified content management and helped to decrease the number of online pages we work with.”

Importantly Content Management Server 2002 also supports access to the City Council Web site using any browser. This is because the technology uses Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) rules, making the new site accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.

Every operational sector of the City Council is responsible for updating Web pages related to its own activities. While this process previously required intervention from technical staff, the new system provides intuitive templates for uploading new content and updating existing pages. Employees from each operational division have been elected ‘validators’ and ‘publishers’ and given the responsibility of managing and delivering content on their respective areas of the City Council site.

To attract as many users as possible, the City Council has organised content in terms of typical citizen requirements at different stages of their lives. This provides administrative support for tasks associated with, for example, employment, taxation, and social security payments.

As well as proritising and organising information more effectively, the new solution incorporates a Citizen Relationship Management system based on Microsoft CRM. The technology, which was deployed by Brain Force Software Spa, serves the public relations office of the City Council, which deals with 16,000 citizen queries per year.

The new system allows public relations office staff to prioritise queries registered over the course of a year, and respond with more than 12,000 phone calls and hundreds of e-mails and letters. Workflow has been established to deal with citizen queries quickly and effectively, and a centralised database logs all answers and information provided to citizens for future reference.

Citizen queries and requests are categorised in the system, from family matters and educational issues, to traffic queries and social services requests. In complex cases, alerts are sent to people responsible for these different areas within the council, ensuring that queries are dealt with quickly and accurately. Citizens can follow the progress of their own ‘cases’ using a number provided automatically by the system.

Benefits

Fast, Effective Online Publishing Enhances Service Delivery to Citizens

Using Content Management Server 2002, Brescia City Council has created standard templates for its Web pages. The technology also provides a staging area where pages can be checked and proofread before publication to the live environment.

With well-defined workflow processes, validators and publishers from all operational divisions of the City Council maintain online content more effectively. As a result, citizens have online access to all the latest news, information, and services.

Colosio says: “Content Management Server 2002 gives us a range of standard templates, making it possible for each division to manage its own online content. Because publishing to the Web now requires far less intervention from technical personnel, we have reduced the costs associated with managing the site. We can also deliver new online content to citizens much more quickly.”

Effective Handling of Citizen Queries

The new Citizen Management System based on Microsoft CRM offers enhanced communications with local people. When a citizen registers a query by e-mail or telephone, it is recorded in the new system. Clear workflow processes pass queries on to relevant City Council personnel and the progress of all ‘cases’ is tracked through to conclusion.

Colosio says: “The new solution gives us tools to collect citizen queries and assign responsibilities for dealing with them. It also records all answers and information we provide in a centralised database for future reference. The overall result of this is increased satisfaction among citizens, which can be quantified over time.”

Ensuring Citizen Privacy Through Compliance with Legislation

The new system complies with privacy legislation (Legislative Decree 196/03). As such, it safeguards information related to citizen queries and communications with the City Council. In addition, integration of the new solution with legacy systems was carried out securely, ensuring the security of all citizen-related data.

Colosio says: “We must always be able to demonstrate compliance with legal standards for privacy. In doing so, we can ensure continued confidence in the City Council in the long term and encourage more of our local residents to use our online resources.”

Ease of Implementation and Minimal Staff Training

Working with BrainForce Software and Altevie Technologies, Brescia City Council was able to deploy the new systems quickly and effectively with little disruption to normal activities.

Colosio says: “Throughout the deployment, the impact on human resources was minimal. Because our users were already familiar with Microsoft Office applications, they were up and running quickly on the updated version. In addition, Content Management Server 2002 and Microsoft CRM are highly intuitive systems, eliminating the need for extensive staff training.”

Infrastructure to Support Enhanced Online Services in the Future

As a result of Content Management Server 2002 and Microsoft CRM, the City Council Web site has become a key access point to public information and services. More than 470,000 visitors access the site each year.

In the future, the City Council plans to expand its online services, integrating the new systems with the telephone infrastructure (PBX and Call Centre) using advanced interactive voice response (IVR) technology. Council employees will then be able to communicate using text messages and even Web cam sessions, reducing the need for costly face-to-face meetings.

Colosio says: “Our new infrastructure offers significant scope for expansion. As well as integration with the call centre, we are planning to deploy a collaborative portal built on Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003. This will provide complete integration of external, internal, and customer relationship management (CRM)–related communications and promote increased sharing of important documents across operational divisions.

“Above all, this new technology will promote even greater dialogue between the City Council and citizens. In doing so, it offers us new ways to enhance life in the City of Brescia.”

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