I was thinking further about ‘The many angles of multichannel service’, and whilst the workflow modelling may assist, the main requirement for it to be successful is an organizational culture that encourages feedback and, importantly, is seen to employ it.
The model I have proposed is effectively just that, a model. Due to the diversity of organizational structures, customer relationship management systems (CRM), content management systems (CMS), telephony systems and applications in use I don’t believe a standard middleware broker applicable at the current time, but who knows what may happen in the future?
However, certain applications can facilitate recording of feedback, transaction volumes and vary in complexity and cost. However, the main requirement is a corporate will for cultural change – the need to accept the variants on co-production as useful tools, the understanding that all channels need to operate sympathetically to each other, the need for staff supporting the different channels to cooperate.
There is also a requirement to understand citizen need prior to the establishment of the citizen engagement exchange. In terms of need, this may be expressed as understanding the citizen neighbourhood, educating and empowering them to advise, and comprehending the demographics.
Some private sector support for the above ideas can be found in reports by clicktools, particularly the one on “Why the annual ‘do you love us survey’ doesn’t work”, which may apply to the Place survey local authorities are expected to do?
The Great E-mancipator 