Dorset for You has Gone Through Some Major Changes

Originally the nine councils of Dorset (East Dorset, North Dorset, Purbeck, West Dorset, Weymouth, Portland, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) all partnered together to share resources in order to provide a better service to their residents.

Part of their shared resources was implementing live chat software into their central contact centre. However they experienced issues with their original provider as they couldn’t meet the specific requirements the partnership looked-for. The councils wanted chats to be routed from certain pages on the website to the relevant team of advisors in their contact centre, in order for agents to provide the most accurate local information to residents.

The initial provider wasn’t able to meet this requirement satisfactorily, therefore West Dorset investigated companies who could achieve this and selected Click4Asssistance in 2015 as their new supplier.

Changes to the Partnership

The partnership has recently reviewed their services to residents and in order to improve them further the nine councils were replaced by two entirely new organisations which took control as of 1st April 2019.

East Dorset, North Dorset, Purbeck, West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland Councils no longer exist, with the new Dorset Council taking over delivering their services as well as the responsibilities of Dorset County Council.

The other three councils have split away from the partnership and have become Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.

The Benefit to Residents

There are several reasons why the partnership was decommissioned and the two new organisations created:

Firstly, it is vital for the councils to protect important resident services such as bins, housing, road maintenance, schools and social care.

Secondly, to reduce costs and give better value for money, cutting duplication.

And lastly, to give Dorset a stronger voice nationally which will help attract business investment, government funding and support local economic growth.

Going through this change and continuing to offer great services at lower costs, ensures that the counties carry on thriving.

Having an Adaptable Live Chat Software Solution

One of the benefits of the Councils having Click4Assistance as their live chat software supplier is that our system is very flexible to alterations. Therefore when the structural changes occurred to the partnership, it can be reflected easily within the live chat system.

Change of Websites

When the 2 new councils were created new domains were produced for them. These can automatically be detected by the live chat solution when a chat script is implemented into the website. Alternatively they can be manually added. The councils can then chose which domains they need active to display the live chat service on.

Amend Users

The councils may want to update existing users if their email addresses have changed to reflect the new domains. They can also easily deactivate/delete users or add new profiles, depending on the staff they have.

Updating Predefined Replies / End Categories

Whatever settings the partnership had configured, these 2 libraries (one of pre-agreed answers to commonly asked questions and the other holding options for the reason and outcome of the chats) are segregated into folders and can easily be updated, drag and dropped into a new folder, or removed altogether.

Designing the Chat Experience

Previously the chat windows had the Dorset for You branding displayed and the relevant council logo for which area the resident resided in. The Click4Assistance solution allows administrators to easily change the design, either with the simple editor where the colours and logos can be changed on existing templates, or with the advanced option that provides access to the HTML and CSS.

Changing the structure of how the county’s local governments are run is not an easy decision or task to implement, therefore when amending the live chat system to reflect the changes we make it as painless as possible to ensure it doesn’t add to the mountain of actions to do.

Click4Assistance has been supplying live chat software for over 15 years, working with councils and government bodies across the UK to ensure local authorities can offer efficient support online. For more information about Dorset’s implementation or how your organisation can benefit from live chat software, contact our team on 01268 524628 or email theteam@click4assistance.co.uk.