Lagan to join up Newcastle's services and citizens

Lagan, the UK Citizen Relationship Management (CRM) specialists, have been selected by Newcastle City Council to be their strategic partner in their citizen-facing e-government activities over the next three years.

Barry Rowland, Director of Cityworks, with responsibility for corporate customer service, at Newcastle City Council said: “Once the solution is implemented our customer service officers will be aware of all dealings the citizen has with Newcastle City Council. Whether they chose to be one of the 160,000 citizens who visit our Customer Service Centres each year, or if they have made an enquiry via any other access channels the citizen will experience the same consistent level of excellent service.”

The project will be implemented in phases, in close cooperation with Newcastle’s Customer Service team and its IT Services organisation. The first phase focuses on Newcastle’s One Stop Shops and will include implementation of a full CRM solution in the City’s Civic Centre by December 2002 – project time of just four months. Included within this project schedule, Lagan will also provide integration to all of Newcastle’s priority service area applications, 13 in all.

“We chose Lagan because they were able to demonstrate a CRM solution working with our data and building on our existing investment,” added Mr Rowland. “The contract was awarded to Lagan because they were able to demonstrate they could do the job, meet the project deadlines and deliver value for money.”

Later phases to be up and running from mid-2003, will make further use of Lagan’s advanced CRM capabilities in the call centre, in the back office and over the web for self-service.

“We are delighted to have been chosen by Newcastle as their strategic CRM partner," said Phil Murray, Executive Director at Lagan.

“This contract enables us to play a really key role in improving service to the citizens of Newcastle. At the same time, it gives us the opportunity to show just how much Lagan and FrontLine can deliver in four months.”

Newcastle City Council is one of the largest unitary authorities in the North East with 270,500 citizens set to benefit from the improved service.

(SP)