ARGYLL and Bute Council's focus on persuading its customers to contact them digitally saved the authority almost £550,000 last year.

By encouraging customers to use more efficient self-service channels and provide them with increased online and voice-automated telephone options to get in touch about services they were able to save money.

The council have made significant improvements to the digital services they provide, helping the council to meet the growing demand. The number of self service transactions has increased by 41 per cent from 189,350 in 2012/13 to 336,203 in 2016/17.

The council's website is the initial point of contact and has seen an increase of 17 per cent in page views in the last year. The council also invested in a new customer engagement system as well as making use of social media, with a Twitter account of almost 11,000 followers and a Facebook account with just les than 15,000 followers.

The public can now use online options for services including changing a house name, registering new streets and houses, pest control requests, obtaining copies of marriage, civil partnership or death certificates and requesting a sampling of a private water supply.

They can also access pre-planning application advice online and report anti-social behaviour such as graffiti, dog fouling, fly tipping and abandoned vehicles, and request recycling and domestic bins.

Councillor Rory Colville, Argyll and Bute Council’s policy lead for Corporate Services, said: “Providing excellent digital channels not only saves money, it gives customers more choice and is more convenient.

"More and more people are choosing to interact with the council via our website and the services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at a time and place that suits them.

“We want to offer digital services that are so good that everyone who can use them will prefer to use them.”

For more information on the online services available visit https://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/home