Introduction

Mole Valley is a local government district in Surrey. As with other Councils, Mole Valley District Council provides a wide range of services to the local populace. They rely heavily on digital assets including their main website, www.molevalley.gov.uk to keep stakeholders updated and informed.

“We were really impressed with Sitemorse and the flexibility of the services to meet our specific requirements such as email and broken links.”

Many Councils are forced to cope with small teams, limited resources and ever expanding digital communications through the likes of web, social media, mobile and email. Mole Valley have been quick to engage methods, tools and software that enable them to keep on top of quality issues that could otherwise compromise user experience.

As their digital sites are the first port of call for many visitors, they recognise the importance of providing great user experience. Of equal importance is the ability for the Council’s communications team to view what their website visitors see. They are then able to utilise automation that assesses all content, line by line, for any problems that could affect that user experience. Several years ago, Mole Valley District Council employed Sitemorse automation to comprehensively assess their content with regular reporting of issues and changes required to correct them.

Five years ago the Council turned to an alternative provider, but due to the software not being able to monitor and report on code quality the Council became concerned about their falling position in the Sitemorse quarterly INDEX, which independently benchmarks local government websites. Mole Valley have recently reinstated Sitemorse, to get a more comprehensive understanding of their digital assets and have been pleased with their higher raking in the INDEX, the improvements made to Sitemorse’s technical capability, support and the service offering.

Service & Benefits of using Sitemorse

We asked Richard Creagh, Web Analyst and Design Manager for Mole Valley District Council to elaborate on his and his teams experience of using Sitemorse again.

Q. Compared to Mole Valley’s previous experience of Sitemorse, what improvements gained your interest again? Was it the better interface and more intuitive nature of Sitemorse?
“As previous customers of Sitemorse we found that the product had improved significantly in the past few years. The portal itself had a much more modern look and feel and was easier to use – it felt like the company had really invested in the product.”

He added: “We were really impressed with Sitemorse and the flexibility of the services to meet our specific requirements such as email and broken links.”

Q. Did you find the Sitemorse service overall easier to purchase, set up and start using?
“Getting started with the service was very easy and we are happy with the support we have received. Using the portal we find we can quickly identify and fix problems throughout the site, which in turn improves our place in the Quarterly Local Government INDEX.”

Q. Do you have any priorities, or projects you are working on that you see Sitemorse fitting in with?
“We now have a release schedule to improve our site in an agile way as opposed to drawn out redesigns, the Sitemorse product is an invaluable part of this process and ensures the quality of our site is maintained.”

Mole Valley District Council have signed a long term contract to use Sitemorse and they are being rewarded with automation that gives them ‘total confidence’ and not ‘hope’ that everything is as it should be in order to provide a quality service to their site visitors/residents. As a result, Mole Valley’s team can now identify and fix digital content issues quickly and easily.

 

Replacing hope with confidence

Too often, we hear clients describe that they ‘hope’ the people who create and manage their content using CMS systems and other software are thorough and diligent with their manual processes, and 100% accurate at all times. They ‘hope’ their brand is consistent, error-free and risk-reduced as a result. They ‘hope’ that online visitors and customers accessing their digital channels have the best possible user experience, in every moment of their interaction.

But ‘hope’ isn’t enough.

Businesses need to “know” that any new digital content requirements have been catered for, and are available across all channels. It’s not about hoping they deliver, it’s having the confidence that they do, as well as detail and insight into any shortcomings and issues.

At Sitemorse, we don’t leave things to chance. We give you that ‘confidence’.

Download the full client view.