Are you clear about how social networking can deliver value and reduce cost for your organisation? If not, you may not be benefiting to the full.

Having a customer service strategy is something that most customer-facing organisations accept as a necessity - but how far does it go in terms of specifically identifying the role of the web, the role of social networking, and taking account of access from smartphones? Currently few councils address these issues either in their strategies or in the practical reality of their websites.

We have well-developed frameworks to help you to develop a vision for how the website will help the council and its partners achieve their objectives, and to develop a strategy for the web. Based on a 20-point checklist, it takes you through a rigorous process for defining the web strategy in such a way as to ensure its alignment with the corporate vision and priorities, and with other key corporate strategies - the customer service strategy, information management strategy, ICT strategy, property and accommodation strategy.

We have the skills and the tools to help you achieve a website that delivers for your council - that is a website that gives real value in terms of the services it delivers to your customers and the savings it makes for the council. We cover all that is needed, summarised below:

The customer is deliberately placed at the centre of our approach to an effective website. Everything about the website needs to be focused on the customer's needs and on meeting these in the most cost-efficient way.

For a step by step guide, click on the diagram to see more detail

Creating an effective website for your council is not easy - and certainly isn't something you can leave to the IT service, or to corporate communications section to deliver for you. Creating a website that delivers real value to the organisation, and real savings in cost takes a corporate effort and requires the following essential elements:

Understanding your customers' needs, and indeed, knowing who your customers are, are both vital to a successful service delivery strategy.

Socitm Consulting has a range of tools and approaches that can help you with these.

Current volumes of transactions

Knowing how many transactions you are currently dealing with is a good starting point - this helps to identify:

Putting the customer at the heart of your strategy for becoming the Council of the Future is absolutely vital.

In an effort to make “Learning” more focused on the specific needs of our membership, we have reviewed our course offerings and launched a completely new programme for the next 12 months. The new programme offers a wider range of course, at more locations, and with more detail provided on each, to help you judge better who to nominate for the course, and the likely benefits to be achieved from it.

Social and digital exclusion go hand in hand. Yet digital technologies are often not recognised as an effective means to alleviate or overcome some of the barriers faced by the socially excluded. The take-up of the internet has slowed considerably since 2004, during a time when more and more essential public information and support services are being delivered over the Web, and when on-line shopping is often the route to the cheapest goods and services.

Currently in the UK: