How to Bring Better Customer Service to City Hall
February. 22, 2016
You hear anecdotes like this all the fourth dimension. A couple of years ago, the city's acquirement department started dunning a friend of mine for city taxes he did not owe. He entered a descending, Kafkaesque world where, in the rare cases he could find a alive customer service representative to really speak to near the matter, he learned that the onus was on him to pay the erroneous back taxes—and just then could he commence upon the convoluted process of trying to right the incorrect accounting. The denouement came when he received a letter from the city, advising him of a new hotline to call for help in these matters. When he did, however, the phone just rang and rang. Not only weren't his calls answered by a man; there wasn't even voicemail set up to at least give the appearance that the bureaucracy cared near the bug of its taxpayers.
Somewhen, all ended well for my friend. But non before multiple years of frustrating telephone calls and being subject to head scratching indifference. I idea of my friend when, in his inaugural address, Mayor Kenney announced that "the vision that will guide my assistants is that city government kickoff and foremost deliver efficient, effective services to every single Philadelphian." Many of us detected a lack of ambition in such a small-ball goal. But angels, also every bit the devil, usually reside in the details, and peradventure there is a run a risk to reinvent how the city does concern with its taxpayers.
Someone—no dubiety someone in private manufacture—once said, "Customers may forget what you lot said but they'll never forget how you made them feel." As well often, our taxpayer-funded regime makes united states experience pretty crappy, like we don't matter. Tin can't have on City Hall, right? But imagine if that weren't the case. Imagine if we loved our metropolis government as much every bit we dear our city.
Last week, the Kenney assistants released a voluminous report from its transition squad, co-chaired past Dwight Evans and Alba Martinez. The report makes 139 recommendations in areas such as education, economical development and public condom; I read it to encounter if real steps were being considered to brand the city more client friendly. After all, across the country, city governments have get laboratories of experimentation when it comes to treating their customers with Disney-like levels of service. Exercise we measure upwardly?
Nether Michael Nutter, some strides were made. The 311 system, for example, non just democratized customer service—you could phone call a hotline instead of a ward leader or Council office to get that pothole filled—information technology had existent consequences on the ground. Police officers, for example, now have admission to 311 data on laptops in their cars. They can encounter previous complaints nigh, say, a vacant property, and use that data when interacting with citizens on the scene. But the transition squad rightly pointed out that our version of 311 doesn't get in plenty. Other cities, like Denver, have official Memos of Agreement between city departments and 311 to insure that citizen requests go responded to. Here, no such formal agreement exists.
Too often, our taxpayer-funded authorities makes the states feel like we don't matter. But imagine if that weren't the case. Imagine if we loved our metropolis authorities equally much equally nosotros love our city.
That said, 1 wishes the transition report cited more best practices, considering other cities are reinventing the relationship between local governments and the governed. In Boston, Citizens Connect is an app that allows people to post geotagged photos of potholes and graffiti and other blight—and and then rails the status of the city'south response. For Boston city workers, there'due south City Worker, an app that directs them to new problem spots and allows them to open up example files in real time. The combination of these apps empowers both citizen and city worker to get things washed without the filibuster we've come to expect from big urban center regime.
In their volume, The Responsive City, Stephen Goldsmith (the one-time mayor of Indianapolis and a erstwhile deputy mayor in New York under Michael Bloomberg), and Harvard Police force'due south Susan Crawford give a compelling instance of how these apps have improved Boston'south borough life, and how an accent on customer service tin can turn frustrated taxpayers into fans of government:
Boston'south recycling program hands out large bumper stickers to constituents who ask for them, so they tin label whatever trash tin as a recycling retainer. One day, the Mayor'southward Hotline got a telephone call from a man living in one of Boston's far-flung southern neighborhoods asking for i of those stickers. 'And eighteen minutes afterwards a public works employee showed up at his door and slipped ane of these [stickers] under his door,' [Boston Principal Engineering science Officer Justin] Holmes said.
The caller went to the door in amazement…'How, fifty-fifty if you lot ran every traffic lite from city hall, could you lot perhaps have gotten here in such a short time?' The public works employee showed the elective his iPhone and the Metropolis Worker app. 'I happened to be around the corner when your call came in, and I had some stickers on the truck, and so I thought I'd driblet by.'
Imagine feeling like that elective must have: My city has my back . It's doable. The Kenney transition team briefly touches on ane of the innovations that has engendered those kind of results elsewhere. The report recommends "identifying key staff to lead functioning direction in each section;" despite its distinctly unsexy proper noun, performance direction—consistently reviewing performance data to inform controlling— has proven that government tin can adopt practices that make it more than responsive to its constituents .
Again, Boston is leading the way, using performance management techniques as a blazon of CompStat program for ordinary urban center services. CompStat, you'll recall, was the revolution in policing that used information to constantly examine and reexamine strategies to fight criminal offense. Well, a plan chosen Boston Nearly Results takes the same arroyo to things similar trash pickup; using functioning direction metrics, the urban center has seen a 30 per centum drib in the number of days permitting applications spend in review. In Atlanta, the same philosophy informs a program called Focus on Results, which has reduced the backlog of uninspected housing lawmaking violation complaints by 70 percent and increased the percentage of inspections within target time frames from 17 to 77 pct.
Simply if Mayor Kenney is serious most rethinking local government and improving its efficiency, he needn't look equally far afield as Boston and Atlanta. He demand just look at nearby Montgomery County, where County Commissioner Josh Shapiro, now a candidate for Attorney General, has figured out ways to make local regime work for people. First came his zero-based budgeting innovation, which Kenney pledged during the campaign to bring to Philly, though word now is that he'due south already bankroll away from that promise. In Montco, requiring metropolis departments to build their budgets up from zero exposed the job creep and flab that had accumulated in the county'south government, which went from 3,200 employees to 2,400 past refocusing on core mission.
We're taking a folio from private industry and sending out a team of mystery shoppers to engage with city government, in search of the expert and the bad feel, and we'll be publishing their reports right here.
Just budget reform was only Shapiro'south start step. More recently, he's unveiled "Community Connections," satellite offices throughout the canton that bring services to the people. In the by, if yous were, say, a veteran who needed to employ for benefits, food stamps and services for your autistic son, you lot'd take to drive or take public transportation to Norristown and deal with three unlike faces of canton authorities in three dissimilar offices. Now you tin can go to i of four (and soon to expand) Customs Connections service centers in neighborhoods throughout the canton. There, you'll be met past a "Navicate"—a customer service representative who will navigate the system and advocate for you.
"We've taken a chunk of staff out of the dorsum offices in Norristown," Shapiro explains, "and trained them in customer service and put them in Master Street storefronts. Why not make information technology easy for people to interact with their government?"
Maybe it shouldn't be, only the idea is actually revolutionary. The Kenney transition team report contains some smart proposals, but, when it comes to inspecting how city services are delivered, it doesn't break a lot of new footing. In that location is a noticeable famine of specific goals and, nigh worrisome, a lack of an overarching vision. In New York, Boston and Chicago, for example, average citizens have been invited into their cities budgeting processes, sending the message that authorities isn't something that gives you lot goodies so much as something you lot participate in. It's called participatory budgeting and it was originally devised in Brazil. In New York, 18,000 metropolis residents take been empowered to spend over 25 meg dollars in capital funds annually.
Innovations similar Citizens Connect, performance management, and participatory budgeting might not, in and of themselves, change authorities. But, taken together, they tin change the civilization of a metropolis's workforce and the mindset of its citizens. To its credit, final week, the Kenney administration tried to introduce some data-based thinking to its human resources section but ran into some bureaucratic pushback from civil servants. Tanker-like institutions fight change, even when the metrics scream for information technology.
So permit'southward create demand. This is the offset in a series on bringing a more customer service civilization to city regime. And we're taking a page from private industry, where mystery shopping is all the rage. Nosotros're sending out a team of mystery shoppers to appoint with metropolis government, in search of the good and the bad feel, and we'll be publishing their reports right here. Considering nosotros hope Mayor Kenney meant it when he said he wanted to make Philadelphia authorities more than efficient at delivering services. At present let's see how good or bad we are at doing just that.
Photograph by NEC Corporation of America with Artistic Eatables license
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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/city-hall-customer-service-philadelphia-city-government/
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