CRM, Citizen Relationship Management - Milan
Milan (Italy)
Managing the relationship with the citizen is functional to improving citizen satisfaction. Getting feedbacks in a systematic and constant way is crucial for improving services offered by the municipality. The CRM of Milan is intended to support the administration in promptly recognizing citizens needs and improving consequently its way of work.
There are three main channels of interaction between citizens and the municipality:
• 020202 telephone contact center, by which we manage more than 1.100.00 requests per year thanks to a team of over 120 dedicated people who answer the phone 6 days a week, provide citizen detailed information, give them assistance about specific requests, support the access to digital services and book appointments;
• The assistance service “Scrivi” (“Write”) web portal, through which we manage from 130.000 to 140.000 requests per year thanks to over 20 teams, spread in different departments, who are specialists on single topics and can provide assistance on more complex issues;
• The institutional social channels, Facebook and Instagram, through which we manage from 5.000 to 6.000 requests per year thanks to a team of 4 people who provide assistance, information guidance and that inform local service managers about problems recognized and discussed in the social media;
• The Virtual Assistant 020202 WhatsApp, by which we deliver from 50.000 to 60.000 detailed pages a year thanks to a team of 2 people who provide citizens with detailed information and forward them to the correct source of information.
Citizen’s requests are analyzed after the initial listening phase, in order to properly understand their needs and foresee their necessity. Welcoming, understanding, qualifying and providing an answer to the expressed needs is for us a way to manage direct contact with the citizen. Most of the requests are related to the main areas of the registry office, taxes, safety, mobility, fines and social services.
All CRM channels describe and list the requests following uniform criteria, in order to identify both the type and topic of the request, and the specialized and skilled team able to answer it.Such information are recorded in knowledge management databases; they are key assets for service improvement.
Monitoring operations applied to Customer Satisfaction allow citizens to help us define pain points, which are shared with service managers in order to redesign citizen support processes paying a special attention to quality and efficiency.
Municipality of Milan’s CRM Omnichannel (The CRM of the Municipality of Milan) is based on a mix of analogical front-end tools, such as 020202 Infoline that answers to a population segment who needs an immediate assistance or is poorly enabled with Digital Identity to accede online services.
Each CRM channel responds to different needs:
· social networks are used to report practical problems and make reports on problems concerning the reporting of potholes, abandonment of waste, general disservices of the city
· 020202 telephone contact center is contacted for registry requests, taxes, fines
· "Scrivi" is used for more detailed requests about social service, fines, civic services
Regarding the back-end, the digitization process is complete. Hence, The CRM provides first-level and informative answers, and uses a joint management IT application that monitors management trend and performance and qualifies the type and topic of the request.
The CRM application also helps to automatically identify the competent teams when it comes to more complex requests, in order to put the specialized operator in direct contact with the citizen. On social networks, the conversation is managed with in-cloud technologies connected to the general CRM.
Protection of personal data and privacy
Citizen’s privacy is protected by The CRM: every request requiring the citizen's personal or confidential data is managed and the data is treated only for the specific pourpose.
Digital delivery of public services
The CRM not only manages information requests with direct response by telephone, but also allows the implementation of a series of services addressed to the assistance services via portal and via social networks, by indicating the URL and the essential preliminary procedures for accessing the service, in addition to its purpose.
Reduction of administrative burden
Over 25% of interactions deals with appointment scheduling with the municipal offices through the telephone channel and the web channel, with a consequent rationalization of contact-management-flow. Citizen's benefit consists in saving time by avoiding queues. For administration, there is a sensitive time saving and a more efficient front-end and back-end management.
Redress and complaints mechanisms
The CRM has a specific section designed as a tool to collect and manage complaints from citizens. It provides an official section within the CRM architecture and involves teams specialized by topics. This process must respect a fixed timing to elaborate and send replies, the whole procedure is defined and detailed by the Italian legislation.
• The management of 5,000 daily contacts is very demanding for the Municipality; they are possible from Monday to Saturday; they are all tracked, defined by topics and monitored in their comprehensive and specific management. That widens service accessibility, compared to physical response centers responsible for all and necessarily generalist answers. Citizens benefit from a secure and transparent contact , so they can make requests and get clarifications without going physically to information points.
• For the Municipality it was rewarding to encourage booking appointments at the Municipality offices through the online channel; for example, it is worth noting the increase from January 2020 -March 2020 (39% of online bookings) to May 2020 -November 2021 (92% of online bookings).
For citizens, this is a considerable saving of time, with certainty of timing and the possibility of being contacted again in the event of problems regarding the management of the appointment with the possibility of postponements.
- operators can be better trained on how to be effective and efficient in managing requests;
- service managers are immediately alerted of any critical element in order to identify solutions and services improvement;
- communication channels, from the web portal to WhatsApp chatbots, are fine-tuned according to the most recurring request cases in order to improve their efficacy in leading the citizen to successfully fulfill his/her need in the fastest way.
