Handling complaints with TOPdesk at the District Water Board

TEXT: PATRICK MAKAAIJ

Water Board Hoogheemraadschap De Stichtse Rijnlanden, in the Central Netherlands, regularly handles a range of complaints, from sewer blockages and blue-green algae, to high water levels. At the beginning of this year, the Water Board established a Client Contact Centre, especially for handling these and similar complaints. The employees use TOPdesk to effectively streamline their complaints-handling process.

20 KLANT IN BEELD

Water Board Hoogheemraadschap De Stichtse Rijnlanden is one of 27 Water Boards in the Netherlands and looks after the local and regional water management in much of the province of Utrecht and a small area of the province of ZuidHolland a total 82,000 hectares. The Water Board is responsible for ensuring safe dykes, clean surface water and flood control.

weve been receiving a lot of complaints about sewer blockages, which can lead to serious problems. We transfer such complaints to the relevant department to resolve.

Murky water and blue-green algae

In order to register the complaints of citizens and authorities, the employees at the Client Contact Centre use TOPdesk. Specifically, the team uses the application to record detailed information, which in turn helps them to handle each complaint efficiently. What is more, the information that the Water Board records is rather different to the average IT or facilities department. Calls are categorized into Dykes, River Banks, Water Pollution, Water Systems and Sewage Treatment Plant and these categories are divided further into subcategories. Water Pollution, for instance, is divided into murky water, oil film on water, rubbish in water, blue-green algae and decay. These categories enable the Water Board to recognize trends in reports more easily, and act accordingly. The Water Board also records geographical information for each call or complaint; however, calls do not always concern the callers registered address. To resolve this, a number of freely definable fields are used in TOPdesk, such as X/Y coordinates, cadastral data and the relative location.

Client Contact Centre

The Water Board regularly receives calls, complaints, wishes and suggestions, but more recently wanted to begin tackling the complaints in particular more comprehensively. In January 2010, the Water Board established the Client Contact Centre, a central service desk where they log, forward and track calls. Dealing with complaints is one part of the secretarial services, explains Margaret Verweij, team member of the Client Contact Centre. Calls arrive by phone and email. Five of us work there, and we take it in turns to handle the complaints; at least, thats the rule, but in practice, it actually seems to work better when just one or two people deal with these tasks. The person responsible then doesnt have to refresh his or her knowledge of the processes of dealing with complaints each week. Calls range from water levels that are too high or low, to polluted streams and street litter, tells Margaret. More recently,

CALLS RANGE FROM WATER LEVELS THAT ARE TOO HIGH OR LOW, TO POLLUTED STREAMS AND STREET LITTER

21

BEFORE WE BEGAN USING TOPDESK, WE KEPT TRACK OF CALLS USING LISTS AND EXCEL. YET, THE BUSIER IT GOT, THE MORE DIFFICULT IT WAS TO KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING

22

WHEN YOU SEE THAT A CERTAIN CALL STILL REQUIRES ATTENTION, YOU CAN CONTACT THE COLLEAGUE RESPONSIBLE TO ENQUIRE ABOUT THE STATUS

relatively straightforward process. Yet this particular Water Board supports 750,000 callers, so it is vital that the link is secure. This possibility is currently been investigated.

Feedback to citizens
TOPdesk and the Water Board have also carefully considered the feedback to citizens, and callers can trace the progress of their calls in TOPdesk. If the caller has not provided an email address, then the Water Board simply creates a letter in TOPdesk, and prints it. Employees can also log any additional information about the callers. In order to cater to the individual needs of citizens, the Water Board registers whether the caller wishes to receive feedback. With this in mind, those calls for which other authorities are responsible are taken and forwarded to the relevant authority.

Improving efficiency
The implementation of TOPdesk took place in just five weeks, during which the application was adjusted to facilitate the unique needs of citizens and offer them optimal support. Together with TOPdesk, the Water Board also investigated the possibility of linking the TOPdesk software with the administration of the local authorities. The objective was not only to improve efficiency, but also because, since the beginning of this year, authorities are now obliged to call up citizens details internally, instead of having to ask the individual each time. For the average municipal council, establishing a link with the local authorities administration is a

Manageable
Using TOPdesk, the Water Board is better able to assist citizens, explains Margaret Verweij. Before we began using TOPdesk, we kept track of calls using lists and Excel. Yet, the busier it got, the more difficult it was to keep track of everything the system was far from perfect. Keeping track of calls in TOPdesk makes everything more manageable. When you see that a certain call still requires attention, you can contact the colleague responsible to enquire about the status.

23