How Rika transformed Devon County Council’s fragmented data into a prioritised, measurable roadmap for digital self-service.

Vertical

Public Sector

Client

Devon County Council

Capabilities

Project Dates

2019

Facing 750,000+ annual calls and fragmented data across 50+ websites, Devon County Council engaged Rika to establish a complete picture of citizen touchpoints, uncover service improvement opportunities, and deliver an evidence-based roadmap for digital transformation.

The Business challenge

Devon County Council needed to understand how and why citizens engaged with its services, uncover where citizens struggled and define a prioritised, measurable programme of digital channel-shift. But the Council’s data was dispersed, fragmented and inconsistent.

The Council’s strategic goal was to make services easier to use and more inclusive while increasing resident independence through self-service.

To support these aims, Rika was engaged to deliver quantitative channel analysis, qualitative stakeholder insight, technical and governance assurance to create an evidence-based roadmap for channel shift and improved citizen outcomes.

Objectives

Establish a comprehensive baseline of multi-channel customer demand, analysing volumes, topics, and journey patterns across all contact channels.
Identify and prioritise high-value opportunities for digital self-service and channel shift, evaluating each by impact, feasibility, and risk.
Develop interactive reporting and dashboards to enable DCC to monitor performance, track behavioural change, and measure success over time.
Deliver technical and data-governance assurance so operational analysis could proceed safely (including DPIA and formal Data Processing Agreements).
Present a Strategic Roadmap and tactical recommendations to drive the implementation of digital self-service across the council’s services portfolio.

Insights

Rika quickly identified some of the key pain-points that would later become crucial recommendations for prioritised digital transformation;

High volumes, concentrated demand; the call-centre handled over 0.75 million calls a year, with the web channel handling over 3 million sessions annually. High-volume clusters were Education, Family support and Roads & Transport - each an obvious candidate for improved digital capability.
A significant volume of call-centre activity was to resolve queries that could easily be delivered by digital self-service.
On-site search was heavily used but often unsuccessful (over 50% of searches resulted in users leaving the site), and navigation, nomenclature and content tended to reflect internal council language rather than user needs, driving further volumes to the call-centre.
Many high-volume services (schools, registrars, highways) had few online transaction opportunities, and poor accessibility and mobile UX were common problems. The web was being used as an information channel rather than a transactional hub.
Fragmented data & governance constraints meant analysts could not access some line-of-business systems and email/face-to-face contacts were poorly tracked.

Approach

Rika's approach was multifaceted and highly collaborative, using a mixed-methods discovery combining data engineering, qualitative research and governance:

Data collection and audit
across channels: Google Analytics (50+ sites, ~120 properties), Netcall call centre exports, Social media engagements across ~70 council accounts, live chat exports and the council’s own services inventory. These sources formed the evidence base for volume baselines, dashboards and the demand analysis.

Stakeholder engagement & fieldwork
including cross-functional workshops, 26 stakeholder interviews and a Customer Service Centre visit which included call listening, giving both operational and live user insight to complement the quantitative work.

Journey mapping & thematic analysis;
Rika mapped citizen journeys across channels to surface the points of friction and to quantify where self-service could realistically reduce contact volumes. The analysis combined behavioural data (site sessions, call types, chat volumes) with qualitative patterns from interviews and call-centre observations.

Dashboarding & technical support;
Rika designed and delivered baseline dashboards and improved analytics instrumentation (GTM and Analytics tagging, session recording and CSAT tooling) so future measurement would be robust and repeatable.

Deliverables

Baseline dashboards & reporting roadmap;
live baseline dashboards and a roadmap for building cross-service dashboards, tied to proposed KPIs and measurement methods.

Analytics implementation
GTM/Analytics improvements and instrumentation so citizen journeys could be tracked and events visualised.

Operational tooling;
deployment of session recording and CSAT polling to capture qualitative signals and user sentiment.

Technical & governance artefacts;
a roadmap aligned to DCC’s Technical Design Authority and governance recommendations (taxonomy, demand analysis tooling) plus a completed DPIA / DPA workstream.

Final Strategic Report;
a full analysis, evidence and a prioritised roadmap.

The Outcome

Rika’s work converted disparate channel data into a practical, measurable plan for transformation. By identifying the highest-volume journeys, fixing analytics instrumentation and recommending a common taxonomy and governance, Rika gave DCC the tools to focus effort where it will most reduce avoidable contact and improve citizen experience.

Fragmented data was transformed

into a priority matrix and roadmap, identifying key services as the highest-value targets for improving digital-service capability.

The foundation of operational measurement

through analytics combined with session recording and CSAT gave the council a practical capability for tracking journeys and measuring the impact of interventions.

Governance & feasibility

recommendations were anchored to the council’s technical principles and included automation so dashboards could be sustained without heavy manual preparation.

Stakeholder buy-in

the combination of a cross-service engagement and fieldwork helped ensure recommendations were operationally realistic and fully-supported by the service teams.

The result is a comprehensive roadmap for cost-effective channel shift and an operational foundation on which to deliver future digital services.