Wyre Council has fought off international competition to win Technology Innovator of the Year in the KANA Customer Awards 2014 as a result of integration with its Jadu Web Experience platform.
The council has built on top of an integration framework developed by Jadu, the councils Web Content Management provider, and has delivered ‘intelligent’ online forms and mapping to enable customers to complete end-to-end digital transactions on the council’s website.
A judging panel of industry experts was impressed with the council's website, which allows residents to report issues such as fly tipping and dog fouling online and plot the location on a map. Officers are then able to pick these reports up on mobile devices in the field and respond immediately, and Wyre is one of only a handful of local authorities in the country that maps them all online, showing where incidents are already being dealt with.
The council was also praised for increasing the use of online services, shifting customers from expensive face-to-face and telephone channels.
Councillor Peter Gibson, Leader of Wyre Council, said: "This award demonstrates that we are continually striving to improve services for residents. There are now more ways than ever to contact Wyre and getting in touch via the website is increasingly popular, as it is quick and easy to do.
"Although online contact is the most cost effective way to operate, development of the website is not at the expense of traditional channels - it just means residents have more choice."
When we developed the integration framework with Lagan CRM, we initially aimed to enable automated messaging between Jadu’s eforms platform and Lagan CRM - what the team at Wyre have delivered though, is very powerful and really delivers a richer digital service for the councils customers to be able to do things for themselves, faster and more intelligently. Encouraging customers to use digital services as default in this way should be the model for all Local Government.
Helen Shaw, Customer Solutions Specialist at Jadu
Wyre took the Technology Innovator of the Year title with Elkjop Nordic, the largest consumer electronics retailer in the Nordic countries, highly commended. The prize includes $2000 worth of training and Wyre's story will be showcased as best practice. Other award winners include BSkyB, Oxford City Council and Vistaprint.
Residents can report everything from missed bins to benefits cheats, pay council tax and comment on planning applications plus much more at wyre.gov.uk.
More information on the integration is available at jadu.net/wyre-council.
