Goals and Outcomes:

If you are choosing a particular service to pilot you will want to define the goals you are looking to achieve as a result of the pilot. Are you looking to prove a particular end to end workflow technically? Are you looking to replicate an existing process, or enhance it? Is the focus purely cost reduction or service availability? Is the service internal or public facing? All of these are valid questions. Also consider the services under the spotlight in terms of your wider transformation strategy.

Measurement:

It’s helpful to define some clear parameters on how you are looking to measure success. This will help to further a business case for wider adoption. For instance an adoption success metric – e.g. (we want ‘x’ % of users to have switched to an online service in ‘y’ time period) will help you put real numbers into a business case which can project forward.

The Service:

Some customers have looked to pilot BookingBug with a service that would benefit from self-service, but isn’t in the business critical camp. This may help you to implement the solution quickly with minimal disruption to the status quo, but also the impact and benefit may be less than other more prominent services. It’s often worth creating a matrix to rank the likely services in terms of who will gain most. This will help to define your roll out priorities.

Complexity:

When introducing BookingBug you may not want to integrate it to wider systems straight away, but there may be certain applications you need to ensure the solution sits within. We have been asked to test against payment engines, CRMs and a range of third party applications. It’s good to define these up front and understand whether they are really needed at this piloting stage or not.

Revenue Generation:

Some council services moving to self-service may also offer a new revenue opportunity. We’ve seen uptake for services such as Bulky Waste and Pest Control significantly improve throughout pilots.