How digital is making life easier for Dorset residents

Here at Digital Dorset we are always working hard to show why moving to a digital way of living and working can actually make things easier, and sometimes cheaper, for our residents.  In this blog, Lisa Trickey, service manager for digital strategy and design, talks about the services people can access online and how we plan to offer a wider service in the future.

We know from the residents survey last year that many people are happy to use online banking and shopping but still prefer to contact the council by telephone.

Last year 300,000 people used the telephone to contact Dorset Direct to request services.  The cost of a phone call is £5 versus £1 for completing the request online.  If most of those people had been able to use an online service, it would have saved the council over a million pounds and it would mean that we’d have better capacity to support customers who are unable to go online.

We also know that if we want people to make the most of our online services we have to make the experience so great that they are confident using them first time with no problems.

Before COVID we had 2.76 million visitors to the council website over the year.  The most frequent tasks people completed on the website were checking bin collection days, searching for planning applications and visiting the jobsite.

But there’s a range of other online services available, with the 10 most popular services used 496,000 times in 2019/20.  These included:

• reporting a missed, damaged, or lost bin,
• blue badge applications,
• garden & business waste requests, and
• reporting highways issues.

During COVID we saw the use of the website and online services change with a 14% increase in people visiting the site.  Initially we introduced a new COVID section to help get information out quickly and easily.  Maps that were available had new layers added so people could see food banks and prescriptions collection services.

When the decision was made to close the household recycling centre (or tip as I like to call it!), search and requests for the garden waste service increased.

When the government announced business grants, we introduced a new online service to support businesses.  But these grants were just one of the online services we introduced, we also developed the:

• library click and collect service,
• PPE request service,
• community shield services,
• online booking of vaccines for professionals, and
• infection control grant service.

All these services were well received and it has shown us that if we build the right services then people will use them.

So we want to take this even further and are moving to a new customer platform. Initially this will move our existing website across with some improvements.  We will be introducing a customer account so people can request services and track their dealings with the council in one place, and we will be developing further online services thinking about the whole experience for the customer.  We are involving customers in testing to get feedback so we can be sure we are doing this right and that our online services work for them.

This isn’t something that will happen overnight but something that we will be continually working towards and we welcome further feedback from residents as we roll out new services.  Get in touch digitaldorset@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk

Dorset Council