02/12-09   -   Press releases

SAS aids local government bodies to reduce avoidable contact and achieve N1 14 goals

SAS today announced the launch of SAS for Customer Experience Analytics for the public sector. The new SAS solution will enable local government bodies to easily and cost-effectively achieve NI 14 goals for reducing avoidable contact. The innovative solution captures and analyses all interactions on a web page, enabling local government organisations to assess where there are real instances of avoidable contact and take proactive action.

SAS for Customer Experience Analytics captures real-time data from the web channel and integrates it with data from other channels to provide true multi-channel customer intelligence and insight, which helps local government bodies to better understand and communicate with their citizens. The solution incorporates pre-built analytics to help track and predict whether specific goals will be met, an important part of the drive towards NI 14 goals.

“Local government bodies are increasingly recognising that only looking at past activity on your website is not enough," commented Richard Broad, Head of Public Sector at SAS. “They should be applying forward-looking analytics to identify what aspects of the website influence citizen behaviour and outcomes, so that they can forecast future trends.

“Organisations need to get more understanding about individual citizens and their interactions and they can´t do this by simply using web metrics. SAS for Customer Experience Analytics records key events and citizen experiences rather than web metrics," continued Richard Broad. “Customer Experience Analytics emphasises insight on the customer by combining data about their behaviour and interaction across multiple touch points. This understanding enables local government bodies to predict where avoidable contact will occur and prevent it, in line with NI 14."

SAS for Customer Experience Analytics has already been used to great effect by prominent private sector businesses – Stephen Lonergan, Program Manager, HSBC Global Transaction Banking comments: “The solution has enabled us to know where to focus our attention enabling us to give our customers the best possible service. It helps us to maximise the performance of our HSBCnet site and prioritise development activity where it is most needed. We have already seen significant benefits from having this tool at our disposal."

National Indicator 14 (NI 14) is one of the 198 indicators against which local governments are assessed within the performance management framework. This has been agreed between Communities and Local Government and the Local Government Association (LGA). The indicator aims to reduce ‘avoidable contact’ between the community and local authorities. Examples of ‘avoidable contact’ include calls from citizens to chase progress on service requests. Such calls are usually of little value to either the citizen or the local authority. However, they can often represent a significant proportion of contact volumes.

SAS for Customer Experience Analytics was developed as a unique high performance data collection system that has been built into SAS’ existing Enterprise Intelligence Platform.

About SAS
SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions delivered within an integrated framework, SAS helps customers at more than 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW®. SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2009 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

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