Summary
- 22,500+ appointments have been booked through agenda between late 2012 and 2016.
- 86% of all birth registration appointments in 2016 were booked online.
- 84% of all nationality checking service appointments were made online or through contact centres.
Islington’s Challenge
With more than 215,000 people living in Islington, the borough’s register office needed a system to centralise tasks that would help streamline the services and minimise the numbers of manual tasks for members of staff.
The successful system needed to be user-friendly for both staff and members of the public. Islington Council offers service to people from all backgrounds and age groups, as such the system must be proven and intuitive.
Islington’s primary goal was to shift customer engagement online to better support the public is bookings to help reduce the burden on staff.
Stopford’s Solution
Islington’s aim was to hit the ground running and as such chose a solution with a proven track record in the registration service. With over 80 registration service clients at time of writing, Islington registrars felt confident in Stopford’s previous experience and reputation working with registration clients and consequently Stopford’s ‘agenda’ was chosen as the suitable diary management system.
Working closely with members of staff, Stopford were able to ensure agenda, once implemented, would meet all service requirements – helping to save staff both time and money.
Working together to improve customer engagement
However, implementing the base system was only beginning of a relationship that would focus on improving how the council communicates with its customers and administers its service. Islington would later implement a number of other online appointment types including citizenship, nationality checking and the online booking of marriage ceremonies.
Since implementing Stopford’s agenda online booking system in late 2012, 45% of all appointment bookings at Islington register office have been made online. Through using agenda, just over 22,500 appointments have been booked by members of the public both online (64%) and through contact centres (36%) since the system went live.
After five years using agenda, there has been a significant change in the way consumers engage with registrars at the register office. Every year there has been an increase in the amount of bookings made online and through council-run contact centres resulting in less pressure being felt by registrars to handle public enquiries and bookings over the phone and face-to-face.
Last year, Islington register office received 4,113 birth registration appointments with 86% of appointments being booked online. This was followed closely by the number of nationality checking service appointments made in 2016, with 84% of all bookings being made either online (98%) or through contact centres (2%).
Stopford will continue working in partnership with Islington to help provide the registration service with cost-effective, productive, long-term solutions that will be benefit for both staff and members of the public.
