Colchester realises 'room' for huge improvement

Geared up for major improvements to room bookings service, Colchester Council become the latest to opt in for Zipporah's system.

Recent weeks have seen Colchester council put pen to paper on a deal which will see Zipporah's state of the art room booking system integrated into the council's existing intranet.

The move, which came after the council was referred by Zipporah’s partner Goss, has been celebrated as a milestone in improvements to customer service and internal operations as well as an important step taken towards how the council demonstrates its evolution as a whole.

Bringing the client up to speed

The integration, which will see the council deviate away from time consuming manual room bookings to much faster online room bookings, is expected to show a big increase in transaction levels as the system illustrates its capacity to manage high levels of simultaneous transactions without breaking a sweat. This likely eventuality has been underlined as forward thinking and innovative towards maximising the potential of previously quieter revenue streams.

Replacing a system that's been described as complicated and 'hard-to-manage', Zipporah's Jordan Burnell highlighted that the room booking integration will deliver a seamless solution at both front and back-ends, illustrating ease of use, report functionality and a whole host of important features.

Benefitting everyone 

“One of the things the customer will notice is how the system responds to dependency issues they raise at the front-end. That can include anything from booking a double room partition to 'next best solutions' if certain dates or times aren't available. This is something which makes the customer experience that much better, it's much more convenient and informative - which in turn will help to significantly reduce unnecessary phone calls”.

Principal operator, Sheldon Coulthrust, is among those who have suggested that the new system will help the day to day co-ordinating of bookings significantly as it overcomes persistent and serious issues that plagued the new system's predecessor.

The new system which will be implemented within the next 8 weeks is available to demo now, for more information contact Zipporah's Sales department on 02920 647048.

For more information on this article contact:

Ioan Davies, Marketing Executive, Zipporah Ltd       02920 647048, Mon-Fri 9am-5pm

Online bookings pay dividends for Brighton & Hove

As part of efforts to streamline front-end transactions, Brighton and Hove Council choose Zipporah's online booking integration, achieving staggering results.

The news comes just 2 months since the launch of Zipporah's integrated Booking System at Brighton & Hove's website, a measure brought in to deal with an increasing demand for sport course participation and the resulting high call volumes.

Technical Director at Zipporah Scott Burton told us “The council were keen to get away from difficult offline methods having realised how limited this approach was. The online solution we were able to provide helped our client to take a step back from unnecessary time-consuming tasks where our system was able to perform complex actions without human intervention”.

Big wins across the board

Figures show an estimated 1073 bookings / £20,000+ was taken through the online booking form in the first 9 weeks, with the council reporting that 88.2% of the total bookings taken were completed online directly by the customer. The move not only highlights a significant migration away from offline processes, but also an exceptional figure of bookings taken in any 9 week period for the council.

The popular move among the council's customers, with over 800 new users registered, has been met with equal enthusiasm by members of the council, who have hailed the move as significant in delivering against time management and efficiency targets.

Cost-saving system proves its worth

Statistics reported the cost to the council's department had dropped to a sixth of the original cost per booking by going online. Brighton and Hove also reported that as well as hammering expenditure, the move had also freed up staff the time to deal with issues which they wanted to spend more time addressing.

The integration which can be applied to any payment gateway also brings with it a report tool that carries data to both the NHS and in-house personnel for ongoing health monitoring and operation management.

Jordan Burnell, Account Executive for the project commented, “the value of going online with Zipporah's bookings can't be overstated enough, both customers and councils noted huge improvements to the service, and for the council big savings in time and money”.

For more information on this article contact:

Ioan Davies, Marketing Executive, Zipporah Ltd       02920 647048, Mon-Fri 9am-5pm

Canterbury ‘waste’ no time, opting for online bookings

Canterbury surges toward online booking overhaul as council look set to capitalise on success of waste system with two more Zipporah systems.

This is the latest development Zipporah, who have become an increasingly popular online service provider to the UK public sector, can announce from its offices in Cardiff, Wales.

The news arrives around the 6^th month anniversary of Zipporah’s launching its online waste booking service with the Kentish council – a process which began after the council decided to make inroads that would help deliver significant improvements to its waste management service.

Overcoming obstacles

One of the key areas of concern to the council was the labour cost to process a booking against the potential online cost - which was significantly less. Realising the potential savings the council took proactive steps to curtail spending by inviting parties to tender.

Applications for the waste bookings contract saw Zipporah alongside competitors put through a rigorous selection process, with Zipporah eventually overcoming opposition on the grounds of flexibility and quality of product.

Bid Manager, Jonathan Stewart, told us “One of the deciding factors was how we were able to demonstrate that our services and processes would be much more efficient than existing methods. We also found favour illustrating our capacity to partner up with Serco, Canterbury’s contracted supplier”.

"Going online with bookings is inevitable once the savings are realised"

The success of the Canterbury’s decision became more been evident as the Zipporah’s system went live, with a reported 70% of the total waste bookings being taken online by July.

Jonathan Stewart commented, “This statistic represents just how quickly our systems are able to illustrate their worth. Going online with bookings is inevitable once the savings are realised, that’s what we’re looking to illustrate.”

With its waste system up and running, Zipporah have been granted the green light on bringing two additional systems to Canterbury, with the council confident that the same booking trends will be observed once implemented. Canterbury’s new systems, which are aimed at tackling the council’s sport / pitches and events bookings, are expected to roll out in the next quarter. 

For more information on this article contact:

Ioan Davies, Marketing Executive, Zipporah Ltd       02920 647048, Mon-Fri 9am-5pm