Tag Archives: services

97 – A question: What if we treated the community the way we treat internal customers?

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Posted by Whistler                                                                                          400 words

bins in street

Colin Weatherby’s post about corporate services reminded me about a video clip that I saw some time ago showing what life might be like if the airlines ran like the health service. It was an interesting way to challenge accepted standards and made the whole system look out of touch. Colin’s post about our corporate services colleagues made me think that a similar parody might be needed to highlight the lack of respect internal service providers within councils often show for their customers.

Here goes.

Customer Service Officer (CSO) sitting in call centre answers the telephone to incoming call from a resident.

CSO:                      Hello, how can I help you?

Resident:             Hello. I put my bin out for collection on Monday and it hasn’t been collected. It is now Wednesday and I am wondering what is happening.

CSO:                      Did you put it out the front?

Resident:             Yes. I put it where I always put it on the nature strip.

CSO:                      Ah. There is your problem.

Resident:             I don’t understand.

CSO:                    Well, we no longer collect bins from out the front of houses. It is a new cost saving measure that will save lots of money. We won’t have to increase your rates by nearly as much this year. It will save at least $5 a week per household.

Resident:             But no one told me.

CSO:                     That’s because it would have cost us a lot of money to tell people. We don’t want to waste money.

Resident:             So what will happen now?

CSO:                      That depends. Do you still want your bin emptied? Continue reading →

93 – ‘Cost shifting’, or ‘State services paid for by rates’? It is our choice.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                         670 words

townhall 2

In local government in Victoria middle maangers are often asked to identify ‘cost shifting’ at budget time to identify the portion of the planned rate increase that is needed to cover additional costs in delivering services prescribed by the State government. A little bit of whinging usually goes along with it. Councils often feel as though they are victims being forced to do something against their will. I think it is a mindset problem.

What is really happening is that the State government is choosing to have its services delivered through local councils and for those services to be paid for by the people who receive them through their rates (property tax). Continue reading →

73 – ‘Social media changes the rules of engagement’ , The Age, 4 April 2015

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                         730 words

multi channel

This article contains a healthy warning for local government about the need to design services with the customer in mind, and to look ‘outwards-in’. There have been a number of previous posts on services (see here, here, here and here). Disgruntled customers of councils are just as likely to use social media to vent their anger and concerns.

“Customers want influence over the contents of what they’re buying; they customise the muesli they order online; stream entertainment that is tailored to their interests, and pitch ideas to software companies as they develop new products.”

In this environment, councils that just continue to offer the same old services, or who alter services in ways that make them less responsive to customers, or more responsive but less reliable, are likely to frustrate people using those services. Continue reading →

71 – ‘Melbourne People’s Panel makes bold decisions where politicians fear to tread’, The Age, 1 April 2015.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                         550 words

Peoples panel

“The public is smart if given the time and information necessary to work through an issue. And this has been demonstrated by a people’s “jury” which has delivered its verdict in a bold experiment in democracy by the Melbourne Town Hall.

The results should give hope to people despairing that Australia has lost its reform mojo, as it provides a new way for government to get hard but necessary things done.”

I read this article by Nicholas Reece, a Principal Fellow at Melbourne University, with some interest. Involving the community in budgeting is not new. Continue reading →

65 – Service suppliers to local government. What do they do differently and why?

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Posted by Parkinson                                                                                       350 words

integrated systems

It has always intrigued me that the major suppliers of services to local government operate quite differently. What are some of the differences and why?

The first difference that is obvious is the investment in enterprise management systems. Some are better developed and more integrated than others but all have a third party accredited quality (ISO 9001), safety (AS4801), and environment (ISO 1400) systems. They will also have a corporate operations manual and a management manual setting out company policy and requirements. Continue reading →

46 – Labor’s rate cap to hurt services and infrastructure, ratings agency warns’. The Age, 27 February 2015.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                         900 words

 slices of cake
Image from http://www.that-is-good-crap.com

This article follows an earlier piece in The Age,  ‘Plan to cap council rates at inflation could lead to service cuts and job losses in Victoria’ on 23 February 2015. Both articles are about the planned legislation in Victoria to restrict councils to rate increases at or below the Consumer Price Index from 2016 unless they seek an exemption from the Essential Service Commission. Some councils have already started to cut jobs to reduce expenditure ahead of rate capping. Others are forecasting cuts to their services and reduced maintenance or renewal of community infrastructure.

This is occurring at the same time that the State government is shifting more costs onto councils and national grants to councils are being frozen. I have previously posted on rate capping (see here , here and here). As you can imagine, rate capping is dominating talk within local government circles. Continue reading →

43 – Developing a dashboard for performance measurement. A case study.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                         1000 words

mini dashboard

I was recently asked to create a dashboard for my unit with the intention that it function like the dashboard on my car (no this is not my car). This is to be done in the absence of an organisational dashboard or scorecard or performance reporting system. There have been a few posts on this topic by Lancing Farrell (here and here) and this post discusses the application of some of the theory.

I started by listing all of the current measures that are in place from external and internal sources of accountability. This included legislation, sector-wide improvement programs, customer satisfaction surveys, occupational health and safety accreditation audits, internal audit programs, culture surveys, organisational policies, and financial reporting. Some of these measures are applied continuously, some are annual and others occur periodically. All of them have some organisational or public reporting of performance. This list was very much a list of things that other people think it is important to measure about the performance of the department. For whatever reason.

Then I made a list of all of the things that I think it is important to measure to know work is being done properly. Continue reading →

42 – How do you listen to the ‘voice of the customer’ in local government? It can be done.

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                                              740 words

This post follows an earlier post Customer, client, citizen, resident or ratepayer. Who are we dealing with? It takes the concept of value further by proposing some tools that can be used to understand what customers expect and whether those expectations have been met.

I will start with Peter R. Scholtes and his views on the ‘customer-in mentality’, which he says is characterised by ‘thoughtfulness, responsiveness, empathy and altruism’. Customer-in thinking increases the likelihood that customers will get what they need – and need what they get. Listening to the customer is the beginning. Scholtes says we can start to do this by paying attention to what customers say when they contact us to make complaints, ask questions, or request services. Councils typically count the number of resident contacts. Some differentiate between service requests and complaints. Few actively evaluate what customers are asking about or saying to obtain qualitative data to guide service improvement.

Alternatively, or in addition, we can initiate contact with the customer to solicit information through surveys, interview or focus groups. Continue reading →

41 – ‘Where does the customer fit into a service operation?’ A brief discussion of the work of Richard B. Chase.

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                                                     1200 words

In 1978 Richard B. Chase published his paper Where does the customer fit into a service operation? John Seddon says this article began the separation of front and back office operations; something that he believes has created many problems in public sector service delivery today. Maybe he is right. But when you read the article, what Chase is advocating makes sense and I can’t help thinking that it isn’t necessarily a bad idea, rather it is an idea that has been used badly.

Chase is an operations manager. By 1978 he had already co-authored a popular operations management text. He starts his paper stating that a manager needs to understand the ‘operating characteristics that set one service system apart from another’ in order to make improvements. Continue reading →

37 – Risk delegation. Who has it at your council?

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                                         480 words

Have you ever wondered who has the formal delegation to accept risk on behalf of the organisation? I know that you probably spend most of your time dealing with systems that seek to reduce or eliminate risk, but what happens when risks must be taken? How do you assess and accept those risks?

My bet is that there is no system to accept risk and that your organisation has little understanding of the risks that are being taken by managers each day. I think that the absence of a system to formally assess and accept risks is the reason there are endless systems to get rid of it. I am not talking about the Risk Register and the big strategic or operational risks that are obvious to everyone. I am talking about the daily risks that arise when something hasn’t worked out the way you would like it to but work must go on. Continue reading →