Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T06:47:42.140Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Customer Relationship Management and Citizenship: Technologies and Identities in Public Services

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

Paul Richter  and
James Cornford
Paul Richter
Affiliation:
Newcastle University Business School, Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE) E-mail: p.a.d.richter@ncl.ac.uk
James Cornford
Affiliation:
Newcastle University Business School, Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE) E-mail: p.a.d.richter@ncl.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

UK public services are characterised by a tension between a model of the service user as a customer of public services and a model which envisages the user as a citizen. Drawing on empirical work in one local authority, we argue that in this tension the model of the customer is bolstered by the availability of ‘shrink wrapped’ or ‘black boxed’ IT-based ‘solutions’, available under the rubric of Customer Relationship Management. We argue that those who advocate the citizen perspective need to engage at this material and technological level if they are to be effective.

Type
Themed Section on Choice or voice
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 211 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aberbach, J. D. and Christensen, T. (2005), ‘Citizens and consumers: an NPM dilemma’, Public Management Review, 7, 2, 225–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alford, J. (2002), ‘Defining the client in the public sector: a social-exchange perspective’, Public Administration Review, 62, 3, 337–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cabinet Office (2004), Customer Satisfaction with Key Public Services, November 2004 London: Cabinet Office.Google Scholar
Cabinet Office (2006), Transformational Government: Enabled by Technology, Annual Report 2006, cm 6970, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Clarke, J. and Newman, J. (2005), ‘What's in a name? New Labour's citizen consumers and the remaking of public services’, Paper for the CRESC conference, Culture and Social Change: Disciplinary Exchanges, Manchester, 11–13 July.Google Scholar
Clarke, J. (2004), ‘Creating citizen consumers: the trajectory of an identity’, paper prepared for CASCA annual conference, London, Ontario, 5–9 May.Google Scholar
Cornford, J. and Richter, P. (2007), ‘Customer focus in UK e-government: or, putting the politics back into e-government’, International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management, 2, 1, 34–46.Google Scholar
du Gay, P. (2000), In Praise of Bureaucracy: Weber, Organisation, Ethics, London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fountain, J. E. (2001), ‘Paradoxes of public sector customer service’, Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration, 14, 1, 55–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haque, M. S. (2001), ‘The Diminishing Publicness of Public Service under the Court Mode of Governance, Public Administration Review, January/February 2001, 61, 1, 65–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herdan, B. (2006), ‘The customer voice in transforming public services’, Report for the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.Google Scholar
Hirschman, A. O. (1970), Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hood, C., Peters, G. and Wollman, H. (1996), ‘Sixteen ways to consumerize public services: pick ‘n’ mix or painful trade offs’, Public Money and Management, October–December, 43–50.Google Scholar
King, S. F. (2007), ‘Citizens as customers: exploring the future of CRM in UK local government’, Government Information Quarterly, 24, 47–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Grand, J. (1997), ‘Knights, knaves or pawns? Human behaviour and social policy’, Journal of Social Policy, 26, 2, 149–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Grand, J. (2003), Motivation, Agency and Public Policy: Of Knights and Knaves, Pawns and Queens. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyon, D. (2003), Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Automated Discrimination, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) (2004), ‘Local e-gov national projects at the heart of excellent services: the Benefits of CRM’, December 2004 at http://www.localtgov.org.uk [accessed 9 December 2004].Google Scholar
PublicTechnology.net (2005), ‘ODPM Minister Jim Fitzpatrick urges councils to e-Innovate their services’, at http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3285 [accessed 18 July 2005].Google Scholar
Shaw, D., Kawalek, P., Batista, L. and Cottam, I. (2003), ‘Baseline environmental scan and analysis of good practice in CRM by local authorities’, in ‘Report for the National CRM Programme and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Version 3.14’, available to registered users at http://www.crmacademy.org [accessed 7 June 2005].Google Scholar
Varney, D. (2006), Service Transformation: A Better Service for Citizens and Businesses, a Better Deal for the Taxpayer, London: HM Treasury.Google Scholar
Werner, R. and Kumar, V. (2002), ‘The mismanagement of customer loyalty’, Harvard Business Review, 80, 7, 86–94.Google Scholar
Zwick, D. and Dholakia, N. (2004), ‘Consumer subjectivity in the age of internet: the radical concept of marketing control through customer relationship management’, Information and Organisation, 14, 211–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar