Problem:

The City of Stonnington handles over 15,000 requests related to waste bins annually, primarily through phone calls. Complicated manual workflows and backlogs have led to delays of up to 10 days in the provision of waste services. It was therefore proposed that a digital form was created to handle the most common waste services related requests. This aimed to:

  • reduce time taken to process bin and waste requests by more than 50 per cent (5 days)

  • reduce customer wait time by more than five days

  • allow customers to use a single channel to lodge their request, including payments.

Approach

After process mapping and customer interacting data was analysed, a draft form was created and then usability testing was performed. This allowed the discovery of actionable insights such as:

  • Customers don’t like putting in personal information to report issues not relating to their property i.e. public bin issue, dumped rubbish

  • Confusion about pricing information and how it will affect them

Proposed solution:

  • Improve clarity on pricing information by providing helper text and linking of webpage containing waste charges

  • Restructuring of sections - pricing information is first then agreement pf price changes to reduce confusion and improve transparency

  • Allow customers to report public bin issues anonymously to reduce barriers to submitting the form

Working closely with software developers and project managers, the insights were discussed and agreed on, and then was implemented and launched.

Impact

  • A 17 per cent increase in the use of the alternative self-help online service in the first six months.

  • Decrease in customer wait times by 10 days per request = 18,000 days each year.

  • A minimum of four minutes saved by Customer Service when customers use the online request process = 120 hours each year.

  • A 12 per cent decrease in bin-related telephone requests.

  • A 10 per cent decrease in information-only enquiries about bins.

  • 70 per cent of the City of Stonnington’s bin and waste services are now delivered at or under the Service Level Agreement (SLA) compared to 59 per cent prior to project launch in late 2023

  • Improvement in resident’s perception of Council waste services by 10 basis points

Want to learn more about this piece of work in more detail? Reach out for a chat.