The Irish Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) is using SugarCRM's cloud-based CRM software to support a household property tax online payment system for local residents.
The LGMA division of the Irish government is responsible for collecting the tax, which was introduced in January 2012, as well as providing customer service support for local authorities.
The customer relationship management (CRM) project is part of a series of austerity measures being put in place to help the government cut costs and raise revenue.
The SugarCRM system tracks all correspondence received, system problems and issues reported by citizens. It then delivers them to the correct department within the LGMA for resolution.
The Agency said it selected SugarCRM's product as it was reliable and economically viable.
Tim Willoughby, director at the LGMA said: “SugarCRM offers a cost-effective way of measuring and dealing with customer issues related to using the system for paying the tax.
"Our operators gain a complete customer view of a problem and can act swiftly to address issues without having to call in developers for support," he added.
SugarCRM will also assist in the official launch of the customer service website, ‘FixYourStreet,’ which helps citizens report problems such as potholes, broken streetlights, fly-tipping and graffiti to their local authority.
Jeff Campbell, SugarCRM’s vice president of worldwide mid-market and channel sales, added: “The LGMA has seen the immense benefit of using our open source platform to drive down cost and improve customer relationship management.
"We hope that this success will inspire other governments across Europe to follow the same model to help them deal with the challenges facing their economies.”
