Council social media accounts had 4,538 interactions in three months

Shopshire Council’s social media accounts interacted with residents approximately 50 times a day over a recent three-month period, a report says.

The authority’s Facebook and Twitter accounts have 35,000 followers between them, but some stories – such as the competition to rename Shropshire’s gritter lorries – “end up reaching millions of people”, scrutiny officer Danial Webb writes.

The report says the authority “gathers data about our customers every day” and its digital transformation programme, launched in 2016 with an aim of saving £36 million over five years, “has given us the tools to be able to decipher this”, and it could be used to “pre-empt customer engagement” and automate some customer service interactions.

The document, due to be discussed by the Communities Overview Committee next week, discusses the ways the council communicates with the public.

Mr Webb writes that, in the 92 days between November 1 and February 1, Shropshire Council’s main Facebook and Twitter accounts published 918 posts, comprising “a mixture of messages, alerts and cross-promotion of other accounts”, and received 4,538 comments or direct messages.

He adds that the two accounts, operated by the Customer Services department, have 12,500 and 22,500 followers, respectively.

“However, the ripple effect of posting messages on can reach a far greater audience, particularly with good news stories,” he writes.

“The competition to name Shropshire’s gritting lorries ended up reaching millions of people.”

Some subsidiary services also have their own websites and accounts.

Shropshire Council’s “digital transformation programme” was approved by councillors in 2016 and includes implementation of a new Customer Relationship Management system.

Mr Webb writes: “Shropshire Council’s digital transformation programme provides opportunities to automate personalised customer service messages, particular with regard to MyShropshire, highways incidents reports, street scene and waste, and complaints.”

In November 2018, a council committee heard examples from officers about how the technology could be use. These included “providing updates to customers who had reported potholes, or broadcasting messages to customers living near to planned roadworks or street works”, Mr Webb writes.

In a section titled “Intelligence, data and technology”, Mr Webb adds: “As a council, we gather data about our customers every day and the digital transformation programme has now given us the tools to be able to decipher this into usable, tangible and evidence-based information.

“Access to this vast intelligence, aligned with the technology we now possess, can help us run campaigns based on local trends. We can more highly refine them, target them better and pre-empt customer engagement to help and encourage our customers to self-serve, achieve channel shift and become a digital council.”

The Communities Overview Committee will discuss the report on Monday, February 24.