NHS trusts are yet to be convinced of the potential savings that could be accrued from shifting transactions to lower-cost channels.
Public Sector Channel Shift Strategies Survey Report 2013, released by GOSS Interactive, is the largest survey to date on channel shift covering all types of public sector organisation.
Public sector organisations can no longer afford to ignore the huge savings that ‘digital by default’ can deliver now that today’s citizens are far more digitally enabled and expect to be able to access services 24/7
It argues that the public sector could save more than £3billion in next 12 months from shifting transactions to lower-cost channels like web, mobile, social media, SMS, and web kiosks, where delivering services can be up to 98% cheaper than using traditional phone and face-to-face channels.
The estimate is based on findings from of a survey 575 senior level executives in 480 public sector organisations, including NHS trusts, central government organisations, local authorities, universities, social housing providers and third sector organisations.
Overall, the survey shows that 66% of public sector organisations agree that channel shift will deliver efficiency savings. More than a third of respondents answering a question on the scale of savings said they expected these would amount to between £500,000 and £3m in the next 12 months.
But NHS trusts remain sceptical, with only 53% of respondents believing the move would bring about significant savings. This compares to 88% of housing associations and 82% of local government organisations. Regional differences are also apparent as across England, 69% of public sector organisations agree that channel shift will deliver savings, while the figure is 72% for organisations in Wales and 88% in Scotland.
Longer term, further savings can be expected, since few organisations are planning to channel shift 100% of services next year. Almost a third plan to shift up to a quarter of services in the next 12 months, with another 24% saying they plan to shift between a quarter and half of their services and 12% aiming to shift between half and three quarters.
In terms of what the survey reveals about the progress public sector organisations have made to date on channel shift, only one third overall have more than 25% of services available online today, although central government organisations have made more progress, with 59% already able to deliver more than 25% of services online.
Part of the reason for relatively slow progress to date, according to the report, may be that most organisations are not yet treating channel shift as an organisation-wide strategic initiative. Only 39% of survey respondents reported that their organisation had adopted a clear channel shift strategy. Of the other 61% of public sector organisations, 64% said this is an area they plan to address in the next 12 months, so that by the end of 2014, up to 78% of public sector organisations expect to have a clear channel shift strategy in place.
In terms of barriers to channel shift, respondents cite a number of organisational and technical issues, including lack of integrated systems, lack of budget, staff culture, understanding of technology, lack of skills and, in some instances, lack of senior management buy-in. Of these, lack of systems integration emerges as the top barrier, with disjointed systems requiring data to be re-keyed manually, making it difficult to put online processes that span multiple systems. This is particularly problematic within the healthcare sector.
For it to be successful, processes need to be understood and mapped, and relevant systems integrated to enable fast, straight-through processing with no human intervention. Achieving this remains a challenge for many organisations
Lack of budget also emerges as an issue for survey respondents, which the report says is understandable in the current economic environment. However the survey also reveals that public sector organisations need to look at the scale of the financial return from channel shift, which can deliver returns in the order of several hundred per cent, often with immediate effect.
Among many examples of savings cited in the report is one from a UK local authority that simply by revamping its online process for finding out recycling collection days saved £59,500 annually on call handling costs, also delivering a much better customer experience.
The biggest channel shift cost-saving opportunity identified by survey respondents is making services available on mobile devices. With 51% of UK adults now owning a smartphone, the mobile web is a particularly good means reaching people in lower income and other formerly digitally-excluded demographics. This may explain why 32% of the respondents to this survey see mobile websites as the channel that can deliver the most savings, compared to 22% for desktop websites, 19% for social media, 9% for LiveChat and 11% for telephone.
Anthony Peake, marketing director of Goss Interactive and author of the report, said: “With face-to-face transactions costing on average £8.62, telephone interactions costing £2.83 and online digital interactions costing less than 15p, the evidence of channel shift activity and the results anticipated, are very encouraging.
“It is no surprise to us that lack of systems integration has emerged as the biggest barrier to channel shift. For it to be successful, processes need to be understood and mapped, and relevant systems integrated to enable fast, straight-through processing with no human intervention. Achieving this remains a challenge for many organisations.
“Public sector organisations can no longer afford to ignore the huge savings that ‘digital by default’ can deliver now that today’s citizens are far more digitally enabled and expect to be able to access services 24/7.”
To read the report summary, click here.
