The MJ is launching a series of articles profiling the winners of the 16 categories in The MJ Local Government Achievement Awards 2012. In our first article, a pioneering approach to customer contact offering 24/7 access to more than 80 different services was the winner of the Transformation through IT category. Michael Burton reports on the winning entry.

Dealing with customers can be expensive in terms of time and staffing. Of the three options; online, telephone and face-to-face, the first is by far the cheapest and is usually the most convenient as it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The average transaction face-to-face is £2.23 compared to 73p online.