It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like…
Ok, we know its September but if Selfridges can open their Christmas store in July and the Supermarkets can display Christmas stock as soon as the kids returned to school, we thought it was best to discuss how local authorities can prepare for the festive period in plenty of time.
It’s not like we are forcing a Santa hat on your head and a mince pie in your hand! It’s just a little bit of information to ensure your residents do not get caught out by the bank holidays and your council is prepared to deal with additional questions, such as parking charges and change in waste disposal dates.
‘Experiences’ by Click4Assistance provides communication tools for your website that many councils across the UK have implemented, to keep a high level of service to their residents whilst reducing their resources. The tools can be optimised all year round however during the festive period some of the tools are particularly useful to help with extra enquiries.
Live Chat
Live chat for website is an instant communication channel that connects your residents and representatives in real time via text based messages. Operators can handle more than one enquiry at a time depending on the how complex the query is and how fast the visitor responds. It can reduce the impact on the phone lines as they can answer more residents’ questions in a shorter amount of time.
When your operators are unavailable to take chats, whether that’s because they are on a break or it is out of hours, the chat button will present in its offline status. This allows your council to continue gathering resident enquiries, which is particularly useful over the festive period due to absences and closure of the council over Christmas, enabling your representatives to pick up the enquiries at their convenience. Alternatively, the offline form can be customised to present important information, such as emergency contact numbers or links to specific pages on their website etc.
Promotions
Promotions are images that display your important information and latest news directly in front of your website visitors. They contain a URL that when clicked upon, the visitor is navigated to the related page.
Amongst the holidays many residents will have questions about parking at local shopping centres during peak times or about changes to their waste disposal days. Displaying Promotions in front of your visitors encourages self-help, as they are redirected to the information regarding changes during Christmas. This reduces the extra amount of enquiries that would typically congest your phone lines and email inboxes.
Why is Click4Assistance a Preferred Supplier?
Click4Assistance is a UK based provider and offers a cost effective communication channel for Local Authorities. The cost of adding ‘Experiences’ often does not require a lengthy tender process and can be implemented through your small contract procurement procedures making it easy to implement.
Data is stored within the UK and chats transmitted through the Click4Assistance system are encrypted to the same high level as you would expect from a payment page. We provide you with your own dedicated account manager and technical engineer ensuring your council is supported throughout your entire implementation.
These are just some of the reasons alongside the resilient solution, that Click4Assistance has strong partnerships with organisations such as Capita and Civica who deliver services to local authorities, as well as many councils across the UK including Sunderland City, Buckinghamshire County and Shepway District.
Click4Assistance has been providing live chat for website software to councils across the UK for over 10 years. For more information on how your council can add live chat in time for the festive period, call our local authority co-ordinator on 01268 524628 or email theteam@click4assistance.co.uk.
