Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (BMBC) serves over 243,300 residents in the north of England. The council wanted to undergo a channel shift to move their registration services online and provide residents with a quicker, easier way to book an appointment.
BMBC selected bookinglab to play a part in helping them to achieve their key digital strategies and kickstarting their ambitious channel shift program. By the end of 2021, BMBC wanted over 70% of its transactions to be completed online via self-service platforms.
BMBC’s registration services are used by a high volume of customers and are in constant demand. Their offering contains several bookable services, each needing a separate customer journey. These include:
BMBC previously took bookings for these services during office hours by telephone. Once requested, staff would check a paper-based system for availability. This labour-intensive process was time-consuming and often duplicative, leaving staff unable to answer calls during busy periods.
BMBC wanted to make its services more accessible to their customers and reduce the time their staff spent doing administrative tasks. After evaluating several products, the bookinglab offering was chosen.
BMBC was looking for a booking system that could help them to manage a high volume of appointment bookings for multiple services, locations, and resources. They also wanted a booking system that both customers and staff could quickly adopt.
bookinglab worked closely with BMBC’s senior registration team to understand and map the requirements for each service. The council wanted customers to pay for services in advance, so the ability to integrate with a payment gateway was critical. There were also important factors to consider, such as web accessibility, GDPR requirements, and data security – all of which were at the heart of the software development process. It was also crucial that the councils new booking solution could integrate with their existing customer management system to allow them to continue monitoring and improving their service.
"We’ve always found that bookinglab have a very flexible and supportive approach. They have always been keen to work with us to ensure we maximize the benefits to be accrued from the design and implementation of the solution."
Michelle Cheetham, Project Lead for Barnsley MBC
After only three months, 49% of registrar bookings were made online, and more than 700 transactions were made through the booking system each month – significantly reducing administration time. This shift to a majority online service has allowed staff to focus on improving service delivery. With the help of JRNI’s powerful administration tools, staff are also able to better understand their customers, improving the overall customer experience.
But, ultimately, the proof is in the feedback: over 85% of users rate the booking service as “Good.” Due to this success, BMBC has commissioned bookinglab to implement another solution to support their adult learning services.
"Enabling our customers to use a simple online process to book an appointment has been met with huge success, our customers love it, and this has fast become the channel of choice for their requests for our Registration service. The support from bookinglab throughout the project was excellent, and the solution provides us with huge potential to now enable other service areas with online booking capabilities."
Hazel Shaw, Head of Customer Support
Learn about appointment bookings
