Self-service scanning solution reduces face-to-face contact & customer waiting times

Southampton City Council has been viewed as a leader amongst local authorities with its digital transformation strategy. However, one stage of the process remained labour intensive - scanning customer paperwork required for benefits claims to be processed.

As a trusted digital partner, the council engaged with Civica to implement a solution to empower customers to efficiently self serve and scan the required documents.

Over a recent 12-month period, more than 23,000 customers brought documents that needed to be scanned in to Southampton Gateway, the council’s ‘one-stop-shop’ in the city centre. This process was very time-consuming and costly for the council.

Having successfully partnered with Civica for over 10 years, the council asked the market-leading specialist to streamline their citizen engagement and scanning process. Civica’s proven approach and methodologies delivered the project inside 3 months, with 11 self-serve scanning points opened in the Southampton Gateway one-stop-shop.

Key Outcomes:

• Streamlining process for over 23,000 documents
• Rapid implementation inside 3 months
• Seamless integration to back-office systems - ensuring real-time information for citizens
• Operational efficiencies delivered - allowing re-deployment of staff to other frontline areas
• Tangible savings - reducing FTE and implementation of quicker work distribution
• Improved customer experience via self-service and reduced queuing times
• An integral part of the council’s digital transformation programme

We’re all trying to save money wherever we can. If customers scan their documents themselves, staff don’t have to, so there’s a saving. And since the documents are going straight into Civica Documents, that’s another saving because the document management team don’t have to manually manipulate them.
Lynn Phillips, Manager of Southampton Gateway, Southampton City Council