On the Road to Satisfaction: Using the Canadian Common Measurements Tool to Measure Satisfaction with Government Services

Customer satisfaction measurement is a key focus for public service delivery and should not be relegated to an occasional one-off research task but incorporated in an ongoing journey for continuous service improvement. Measurement tools and techniques can only work if there is a prerequisite organisational cultural commitment in place. It has to be championed from the top, with chief executives openly committed to regular customer satisfaction measurement.

Audit Commission, United Kingdom - Archive

Archived articles and resources about audit commissions reviewing egovernement activities in the United Kingdom.

Better Practice Guidance for Government Contact Centres, United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about best practice for government contact centres.

Citizen centric service - United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about the provision of citizen centric service by government in the United Kingdom.

Citizen centric service / Customer relationship management in eGovernment - Archive

Resources about customer centric service and customer relationship management relating to online service delivery by government.

Citizen Centric Services - United States - Archive

Articles and resources about trends and issues relating to citizen centric services in the United States.

Co-Production by Design – embracing digital society makes for smarter services - Serve You Right, Melbourne, September 2011

Paper presented by Dr Steve Hodgkinson - Research Director IT – Asia/Pacific Ovum, at the Serve You Right Conference, Melbourne, September 2011. The modern digital economy requires new behaviours from citizens, industry partners, peer agencies and governments to inspire economic, social and environmental sustainability, nurture digital society initiatives, collaborate to pool thinking and resources and leverage proven platforms and solutions.

Customer Satisfaction - recent updates in measurement and performance across all channels - Serve You Right, Melbourne, September 2011

Presentation by Paul van Veen, Customer Service Benchmarking Australia (CSBA) at the Serve You Right Conference, Melbourne, September 15-16,2011. Provides an overview of: What to look for in customer service measures; The overall service improvement model; Customer satisfaction measures; Understand current performance; Key points for successful customer satisfaction measurement.

e-Citizen Charter (e-Citizen Programme)

The aim of the Dutch e-Government policy is to improve information exchange, service delivery and interactive participation by introducing a new partnership between citizen and government. This is to be achieved by giving more responsibility and choice to citizens. As far as the Dutch cabinet is concerned, the required empowerment is being supported by ICTs. To help citizens in their new role, the e-Citizen Programme has developed an instrument: the so called e-Citizen Charter.

Getting Serious on Client Service: An IPAA Policy Discussion Paper

Public sectors worldwide are facing unprecedented pressures to deliver more effective, efficient and responsive public programs. This is in the face of a combination of social, economic and global challenges. The Information and Communication Technology revolution is rapidly changing how society operates and how services are delivered and critiqued. Many of the "easy wins" have already been made in delivering service improvement, making it harder for governments at all levels to find significant future enhancements. This is coupled with rising public expectations regarding public service delivery notwithstanding fiscal constraints and crises in most advanced countries. This paper explores the issue of how to further improve public sector service delivery in spite of these challenges. In particular the issue of customer service in the tax-payer subsidised general government sector is examined from three perspectives.

New Zealand Jurisdictional Update - Serve You Right, Melbourne, September 2011

Paper presented by Joy Hippolite, Senior Adviser, State Services Commission (New Zealand), at the Serve You Right Conference, Melbourne, September 15-16, 2011. Examines Kiwis Count, common measurements tool and understanding the srivers of satisfaction with services delivered online

Putting People at the Centre - Contents

Contents page for the eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre.

Putting People at the Centre - Creating a Framework for Ongoing Reform within Government

eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010. Strategies - Responding to issues holistically across government; Building capabilities within agencies; Effective sharing of resources. The development of citizen-centred services as part of eGovernment will inevitably involve changes to the way government works.

Putting People at the Centre - Executive Summary

Executive summary of the eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010.

Putting People at the Centre - Introduction

Introduction to the eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre.

Putting People at the Centre - Ministers' Message

Ministers' message regarding the eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre.

Putting People at the Centre - Providing Better Community Engagement and More Effective Democracy

The eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre outlined strategies to provide better community engagement and more effective democracy include giving people access to competing source of information and analysis, creating opportunities for community consultation and debate, inproving opportunities for policy discussion, and protecting personal privacy.

Putting People at the Centre - Substantially Improving Support and Services to Citizens

The eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre providing a citizen focussed vision for e-Government.

Putting People at the Centre - Using Innovation in Finding New Opportunities

The eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre saw e-Government as a commitment to greater innovation - in the use of new information networks and communications technology, in new ways of working and in new partnerships outside government.

Putting People at the Centre: Our e-Government Vision - Media Release

The eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre was launched by the then Premier on 26 March 2002.

Transformational Government

Chief Information Officer Council, Cabinet Office. Information related to the UK government's Transformation strategy to make to make access to information and services easier for citizens and businesses.

USA Services

Mission: To present citizens with a single point of reference for government, allowing them to receive accurate, timely and consistent answers and information in both English and Spanish via their preferred means of communication.

They have developed a six step approach to improving agency citizen services and establishing government-wide citizen service standards.

Service NSW - customer-focussed government

"NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has announced the establishment of Service NSW. Service NSW is a new and customer-focussed government organisation that will become the main interaction point for customers of the NSW Government. Service NSW will make it easier to interact with the NSW Government by bringing services together in an integrated government model. Service NSW will deliver a range of NSW Government services and transactions through a 24/7 telephone service, an easy-to-use website, and service centres across the state..."

New citizen interaction model to be launched in Australian state

By Sumedha Jalote. FutureGov, 10 May 2013. "The State Government of New South Wales, Australia, is creating a single contact point for citizens and business to seamlessly interact with the government. The new organisation, Service NSW, will be a one-stop-shop for state government information and services. Located within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Service NSW will provide a 24/7 telephone service, a web portal, and service centres across the state to the public..."

Putting citizen collaboration at the heart of public services

PublicService.co.uk, 8 May 2013. "There needs to be a dramatic shift in how the public sector sees its mission and delivers its services – putting the customer at the heart of the mission, writes Lior Arussy, president of the Strativity Group In an increasingly austere economic climate, where governments must make difficult budget cuts and find ways to do more with less, the need to garner the support of the public has become critical. 'Citizen Collaboration' – the partnership created between government-backed organisations and the taxpayer – is what is needed to succeed. To work, this new concerted relationship requires a dramatic shift in the way that the public sector views its mission and delivers its services, treating people as customers and not figures or statistics..."

4 Best Practices for Better Government Customer Service Delivery

By Tricia Morris, Business 2 Community, Published April 23, 2013. "Government agencies are adopting customer service best practices that have been tested and honed over the past several years by commercial brands and are utilizing them to quickly level up to even the most demanding customers’ service and support expectations. Improved information delivery and better communication across more and new channels are finally loosening the grip on the public’s perception that they have to fight through red tape to get service. Here are four commercial best practices that are increasingly being used by government agencies to deliver more effective and efficient engagement..."

Citizens First 6: Understanding the opportunities

Written by Bernadette De Souza. Canadian Government Executive, Volume: 19 Issue: 4, Monday, 22 April 2013. "A key challenge for government service delivery managers will be adapting to the new mantra of 'doing more and better with less.' The drive to contain costs within the public sector will likely encourage co-location of services across jurisdictions, integration, streamlining and the provision of more self-service options. Citizens First 6 (CF6), the latest in the series of surveys undertaken by the Institute for Citizen-Centred Service on behalf of 14 sponsoring jurisdictions representing municipal, regional, provincial, territorial and federal levels of government, gives service managers information on the experience of clients who have interacted with government through a range of channels..."

Industry Perspective: Customer Service Makes Content King

By Eva Neumann, president and CEO, ENC Strategy. Government Technology, April 17, 2013. "Great customer service happens when you exceed expectations — and expectations are higher than ever. People want to interact with government on their own terms. They want instant, accurate, easy-to-understand information delivered via their channel of choice. To deliver great customer service, government agencies must understand the needs of their customers, and adapt to improve the way those needs are met. — HowTo.Gov These words ring true with citizens. The intention here is good, and Executive Order 13571 (on means well by directing government agencies to set service standards and use customer feedback to improve user experience. But how many agencies are listening? And how many have resources to spend improving customer-service aspects of things such as federal websites?..."

What Citizens Really Want

Posted By Bill Bott. Governing, April 7, 2013. "... The government serves selfish people because it makes people selfish. That's right, we take perfectly nice and caring people and make them self-centered and bitter. We do it by stealing their time, setting up confusing hoops to jump through and dangling a carrot in front of them. Some chase a carrot they need like a permit, and some chase a carrot we force them to eat like a building inspection. Either way, depending on how desperate they are for the carrot or how tired they are of jumping, they turn on us and, like a cult, we brainwash them into selfish and upset hostages. Much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, there’s a hierarchy of customer satisfaction and at the top of the pyramid is the result..."

How to Improve Government-to-Citizen Communication

By Sarah Rich. Government Technology, April 5, 2013. "The guiding principle of 'Create once, publish everywhere' holds true for publishing online content, and its relevance is increasing in government-to-citizen digital communication. Public-sector alert notifications company GovDelivery CEO Scott Burns echoed this sentiment during the Digital Communications Tour: Northern California held on Wednesday, April 3 in Oakland, Calif. During the conference, Burns spoke to government employees involved with citizen outreach and emphasized key strategies to improve citizen engagement using constituent notifications..." Includes: 9 Steps to Digital Communications Success

ForeSee Releases Canadian Customer Satisfaction Benchmark

Research shows satisfied Canadian customers are more loyal and likely to recommend. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 13, 2013 /CNW/ - "ForeSee, the global leader in customer experience analytics, released a new Canadian customer satisfaction benchmark that shows the strong link between customer satisfaction and the impact it has on future behaviors for customers of Canadian businesses. ForeSee's Canadian benchmark is based on more than 24,000 survey responses from website visitors to both native Canadian and Canadian divisions of U.S. retail and nonretail businesses in the month of February..."

Twitter no solution for customer service

By Joshua Gliddon. IT News, February 22, 2013. "Social media akin to airing dirty laundry in public. Think that Twitter is going to be the answer for always-on customer service? Think again. According to PV Kannan, chief executive of [24]7, a customer service software company, the ubiquitous tweet is the last resort for customers who can't get satisfaction elsewhere. 'People use social media to express concern and unhappiness,' said Kannan. 'Customer service organisations add their services to Twitter because they don't do [service] well elsewhere.'..."

Hong Kong improves citizen service with new visual analytics

By Thanya Kunakornpaiboonsiri. FutureGov, 21 February 2013. "The Hong Kong Efficiency Unit (EU) has recently deployed visual data analytics software to improve its service delivery for citizen. In partnership with SAS, the new software allows the EU to visually examine data on citizens’ complaints, developing insights and finding innovative solutions in collaboration with its partner agencies..."

Mobile Technology, Co-Creation and the Empowered Citizen

Mobile devices are powerful platforms for engaging citizens as partners in transforming the public sector. Governments need to move faster to take advantage of this opportunity, By William D. Eggers, Jason Salzetti. Governing, February 13, 2013. "Today's consumer is a power player. Citizens enfranchised by rapid advances in mobile technology are breaking down traditional barriers between producer and consumer. The resulting model of co-creation is contributing to loads of innovation in the private sector as companies realize that success requires an engaged customer base. Like these successful companies, government has the opportunity to leverage a growing network of mobile-empowered citizens to improve how it delivers services..."

Government Customer Service is Good Governance

By Bill Grabner, Business 2 Community, Published February 13, 2013. "I realize that for many of the general public, the phrase 'Government Customer Service' may seem like another amusing oxymoron, like Jumbo Shrimp or a Friendly Argument... So why is good government customer service so important? The simple answer is that government customer service is one of the few technological environments where automation and efficiency gains can provide cost-savings to government agencies in a time where all budgets are under the microscope. And, it can also give citizens a dramatically streamlined service experience that saves them time and effort, improving their perception of their government at work..."

Community Engagement - Topics A-Z

Topics A-Z listing of articles and resources about community and citizen engagement initiatives by government.