Mobile Service Operations (CRM App)

Effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is essential to client satisfaction—particularly when you are serving the 190,000+ population of Limerick City and County, as the local authority does.

This LCCC Mobile Service Operations app – which has been in use for around 12 months – enables field supervisors and outdoor staff to collect and organise actionable data, access and update it in the CRM using mobile devices. This ensures that information required by customers is timely and accurate, and the council can manage processes better and make sounder decisions.

The case management in the app replicates physical office systems and is used mainly by the Housing and Environmental Departments but can be employed by other divisions, according to Rob O’Driscoll, Digital Strategy Programme Manager at LCCC. “People working the case in the field can record information in real time like take pictures on site, make observations, add them and that is immediately synchronised back to the CRM. The whole flow of information is circular so if a citizen or councillor creates a case through ‘My Limerick’, it goes into the CRM and is assigned to the right department in the council. The staff can go out with the mobile app and see what they need to do, send all the information back immediately and it’s instantly available to customers on the My Limerick platform. If staff do something with the case, make a change to it, resolve it, the status will change and any comments they make will be visible in the public log of that particular case.”

“It’s a more efficient system with better transparency and there are real time updates online. If the customer phones in, the information is there for our customer service staff to provide,” he added.

The app was created internally; functionality and features were designed by talking to different departments to ascertain their needs. LCCC also consulted with other local authorities too because other local authorities are on “similar journeys”.

By streamlining the way staff catalogue and relay information, the Mobile Service Operations app helps both staff and customers; allows multiple teams to collaborate and improves the quality of analytical data and reporting.

The development of the app continues with new features being made available to the employees of the Council in order to better serve the public, citizens and customers.

The LCCC Mobile Service Operations App enables field operators and crews live access and updating of back-office data for dealing with customer requests (potholes, street cleaning, etc.)