Better marketed:achieving success with take-up of online services

Produced by: Socitm Insight

Type: Reports

The take-up of online services should be high on every council’s agenda as a way of improving customer satisfaction with services and at the same time achieving efficiency gains.

Context for website take-up

We explain why it is increasingly important to market online services in order to achieve payback on the investment in e-government particularly through efficiency and customer service gains. We also discuss the extent to which people are using online services generally, the range of government initiatives to drive take-up and some Socitm initiatives on take-up.

Overview of case studies

We have researched six service-specific case studies, covering schools admissions, recruitment, waste collection, planning,  housing lettings and parking services. We have also researched two corporate cases studies: one concerns an internal communications campaign to raise awareness among its service managers of the need to develop and promote their services online, and the other concerns a publicity campaign to promote take-up of council online services.

Conclusions

What is clear from the case studies in this report is that significant take-up of council services online is achievable. We have found examples of high take-up across a range of different services run by a range of different types of council. However, a number of issues have emerged in researching the case studies which may help explain why progress with  take-up of local government services online has been relatively modest in the UK, despite high levels of internet usage generally and the relative sophistication of e-services available across the board.

Last modified: 19th January 2010