Rotherham picks Siebel for CRM

Siebel has added another public sector feather to its cap, signing up Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council to its customer relationship management (CRM) software.

The deal was brokered with BT, which has a £140m joint venture with Rotherham to electronically deliver services to citizens over 12 years.

Siebel is a major partner of BT's but the Yorkshire authority says it was able to choose any CRM provider.

"BT could have recommended others and we could have chosen someone different," said Paul Briddock, service leader at RBT Connect, the joint venture that stands for Rotherham Brought Together.

He said that the Siebel deal and those like it are "part of a step change to become a better [local] authority".

Siebel famously did a deal with Tower Hamlets Council in London back in the 2002. That authority serves one of the poorest areas in the UK but said at the time that better connecting with citizens through e-government was a key route to improvement.

Rotherham's Briddock declined to reveal the exact slice of the RBT Connect funds Siebel will get but explained that there will be an ongoing skills transfer to internal staff. Consultants from BT and a Siebel team will work with Princeton Consulting to get CRM up and working.

For now the systems are used in call centres - for example, taking calls about broken street lights or stray dogs as part of the Streetpride initiative - but will be integrated with other channels, such as email, the web and SMS, Siebel said.

Briddock said that return on investment will take place towards the end of the contract and that there will be changes in functions such as IT and HR to align with the new processes.

Unlike some local authorities, he said the 'c' in CRM will stand for the traditional 'customer' rather than 'citizen'.