With a view to continue the expansion of online booking for Hounslow’s registration service, we’re pleased to have worked with the west London based team to deliver their latest phase of their project.
The initial phase of Hounslow’s registrars project went live earlier this year, delivering new online flows for registration and notice bookings. The launch of the new system has been proven to be very successful with the public, with over 80% of customers booking appointments for births, deaths, notice of marriage and notice of civil partnership.
The second and most recent phase of Hounslow’s project saw the Stopford team build on the foundations and launch our newly redesigned citizenship admin and accompanying online booking functionality, alongside the full Copy Certificate module.
Citizenship Booking
The first solution implemented in phase 2 is Stopford Citizenship admin and online booking options. The introduction of an online booking interface for citizenship ceremonies will aim to reduce enquiries building up through the telephone or contact form channels and enable a self service option for customers. Using the online flow, citizens who have received a Home Office invitation letter will be able to input their full name and HO number before proceeding to choose a public or private citizenship option.
Hounslow have also been trialing Stopford’s new Citizenship interface for agenda for registrars, designed to bring in UX improvements that will streamline the management of citizenship attendees and ceremonies. This includes an easier way of allocating, searching, and managing both ceremonies and attendees within the system.
Julie Gillies, Superintendent Registrar at Hounslow Council, had this to say about the addition of online citizenship booking:
“Along with births, deaths, notice of marriages and civil partnerships appointments, new citizens can now book their own ceremonies 24/7, any time of day. We have had a 95% uptake in the first week of implementation!”
Copy Certificate Ordering
The second addition to the system is Stopford’s Copy Certificate module for agenda. Copy Certificate ordering facilitates the purchase of certificates by the public and the management of orders through every stage (from order received to dispatch) in the admin side.
Advantages of Copy Certificate ordering includes the ability to order multiple certificates, an accompanying customer service centre version for telephone orders, and the ability to select a variety of delivery or collection options.
Admin is also packed with plethora of features for Hounslow’s registrars to take advantage of. This includes a search feature based on multiple criteria (e.g. paid, dispatched, appointment types etc.), the ability to record payments against orders and new communication triggers within ‘Letters’.
Julie Gillies said this about implementing Copy Certificates:
“Although we have had an online LBH version to order a birth, death, marriage or civil partnership certificate for several years, having it under the one system will make the process more streamlined. This will not affect the customer journey as the change has been seamless, the form is in a slightly different format for ease of use. Customers can now order multiples of different certificates using the same form, for example and birth and a marriage, instead of previously filling in individual forms and purchasing separately.”
The Stopford team look forward to seeing how Hounslow’s latest additions positively impact the service going forward.
More about Stopford
To find out more about our new Citizenship interface, please contact Stopford directly for a demo of our admin side and our online process.
For more on Copy Certificates, please visit the Copy Certificates product page for more details and to request a demo through the contact form.