Case study
South Ribble Borough Council provides many services to residents in central Lancashire. The council believes in providing excellent customer service and in recognition of this, South Ribble Borough Council has been awarded a Charter Mark, recognising the outstanding service by its Revenues and Benefits services. A Charter Mark shows that an organisation puts its customersfirst and is delivering a first class service.
One of the most important functions requiring good customer service is the revenuesdepartment which is responsible for collecting council tax and non-domestic rates. The most popular payment method chosen by residents is Direct Debit. 67% of council tax payers and 59% of non-domestic rate payers pay by Direct Debit. In total, the council processes approximately 300,000 Direct Debit Instructions a year.
As part of a project to convert to Paperless Direct Debit, South Ribble Council needed a solution to validate bank account details. The council contacted the supplier of their revenues and benefits software for further advice and they recommended Bank Wizard to provide the required validation of bank account details.
As a result of implementing Bank Wizard, South Ribble Borough Council has been able to reduce the number of rejected Direct Debits due to invalid bank details from several dozen per month to single figure volumes. This has had a positive impact on customer service as the number of phone calls to customers to re-confirm their bank account details has been virtually eliminated. Moreover, the administration costs associated with this process have also been dramatically reduced.
"We chose Bank Wizard because we implemented Paperless Direct Debit within the council and we wanted to ensure that all bank account details were validated correctly. Bank Wizard was up and running in a very short period of time as the integration with our revenues and benefits system was seamless. We like the fact that the Bank Wizard database is constantly updated to ensure that we are always using the most up to date information. In particular, the updates are received via an on-line facility which is extremely efficient and easy to implement".
Jack Gregory
Revenues Services Manager
South Ribble Borough Council
01/05/09