Scotland's councils need to work more closely together and share best practice on listening to customers if they are to achieve their ambition of delivering services that consistently put the customer first.
The conclusion comes with the publication of Improving the understanding of customer satisfaction & experience in Scottish local government. The report, which focused on how customer satisfaction with council services is being assessed, identified a number of problems with current practice:
- inconsistency of practice, meaning that different surveys can't be compared, between services and departments in authorities and between authorities;
- lack of expertise, particularly in relation to both survey design and analysis;
- a tendency not to use data to deliver service improvements. One workshop participant commented ‘[We] don't always do anything with the results';
- a perception that measuring customer satisfaction is inevitably expensive
- feedback to customers not being adequate.
On a more positive note, the report found that councils are giving a high priority to customer service, which has been further strengthened under last year's Concordat between central and local government.
The report suggests a series of measures to achieve more consistent approaches to listening to customers, including:
- the creation of Good Practice Toolkits that include robust advice on collecting and analysing information;
- bringing together staff from across Scotland's councils to share training and support;
- accessing a central specialist team to advise on technical issues involved in ensuring the most accurate customer feedback;
- the development of a shared resource bringing together the survey questions and approaches that are most helpful to customers;
- the development of standardised approaches to gathering customer feedback to ensure realistic comparisons can be made between councils;
- the central collection of anonymous data to give a Scotland-wide perspective.
The report is the result of a collaboration between Consumer Focus Scotland and the Improvement Service. Consumer Focus Scotland Chair, Douglas Sinclair says the opportunity now exists for councils to work together, allowing the people they serve to know they are valued customers: "Of major interest and concern to consumers is the responsiveness of their local council to their needs and whether their experience has been a positive one. What matters most for consumers is that they are treated with courtesy and politeness. They want to know they will be listened to and allowed to feel that they matter as individuals with opinions that count."
Improvement Service Chief Executive, Colin Mair, says the timing of the report is important. "Following the signing of the Concordat, local authorities now have a very real opportunity to take control over their own development by demonstrating ambition, being open to challenge, innovation and scrutiny. I am confident that they will grab the opportunity to learn from each other, sharing good practice to allow everyone in Scotland to have a say in developing the best local services."
Both the full report and a summary report can be found in our Research document library.
Source: Improvement Service press release
