July « 2008 « The Great E-mancipator

The North East echoes my initial findings! A new report written by Aperia, who did the work with Chorley/NWEGG on citizen need, has been produced on behalf of the Customer First Network of the North East England local authority customer service managers under the auspices of the North East Improvement & Efficiency Programme. It examines NI14 and contact management, with some sound advice!

Amongst the quotations I savour are:

regarding NI14 – “our view is that this figure is, in fact, of little value (but the Minister wanted one!)” – page 10

Page 11 – “Additionally, there are indications that it is important for public sector contact centre staff to increase their ratio of time spent with the customer as a percentage of time worked. There is emerging thinking that demonstrates that private sector call centre staff spend something approaching 40% of their working time with the customer whereas public sector equivalents spend less than 20% of their time with the customer. To drive these improvements it will be critical for contact centres to be recording a recognised measure of productivity – and what is more a measure that will have to be accepted by employees as an indicator that they can directly affect.”

Page 11 – “Attempts to address uniformity of customer satisfaction indices have been tried and failed on many occasions.”

Page 12 – “Potential measures for quality include:-

Overall Satisfaction – percentage of surveyed customer respondents expressing overall satisfaction with the services received to determine the percentage of customers who are satisfied overall with services provided by the organisation

Engagement with the improvement process – percentage of customers (broken down by customer type) identifying ways to improve service delivery to determine the level of customer engagement with service improvement.”

Page 13 – “Corporate systems should be in place to help measure customer satisfaction – the key quality criteria for any customer focused organisation. These should be multi-channel and configured in accordance with the available common languages (controlled lists) that describe local government services.

Page 14 – “Measuring usage of public services across all primary channels for that service is critical.”

Page 15 – “There are no council’s (who responded) who have a fully holistic approach to managing access channels for local services. Customer Services as organisational units tend to be limited to telephone and face to face contact with little, if any, control over the web and white post channels or other lower volume channels. Corporate responsibility for face-to-face remains isolated to one-stop-shops, rather than more broadly applied to all face to face interaction.”

All-in all a useful document!

Leave a Comment » | Metrics, NI14, customer satisfaction, e-government, transformational change | Tagged: Aperia, NI14, North East Connects, satisfaction | Permalink
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Some of July’s literature findings

July 16, 2008

On the subject of metrics, in his introduction to Shewhart (1986, p. i), W. Edwards Deming states that:

“There is no true value of anything. There is, instead, a figure that is produced by application of a master ideal method of counting or of measurement. This figure may be accepted as a standard until the method of measurement is supplanted by experts in the subject matter with some other method and some other figure.”

On the choice of metrics, Anderson & McAdam (2004, p. 476) argue that:

The design, implementation and use of measurements should be a simultaneous and continuously evolving process in which changes in the strategic direction and learning requirements of an organization are constantly accounted for, a speedy and effective implementation of the formulated strategy is to be achieved.

Thinking about when and where to measure Adcroft & Willis (2006, p. 394 – 395) argue that: “much of public sector provision should be treated in a gestalt manner where the overall quality of the provision is determined by how the individual elements fit together.” This would appear to be supported by Johnston (1995, p. 99) who states:

“Attempts to increase satisfaction rather than the removal of dissatisfaction maybe has been the down fall of many quality improvement or so-called TQM programmes.[…] Maybe without a strategy that includes both dissatisfaction removal and satisfaction increase, or at least dissatisfaction removal first, staff and, indeed, customers could become justly cynical of the organization’s attempt to improve service quality.”

Johnston (2001, p.67) has further argued that:

“Financial benefits accrue from satisfying and retaining dissatisfied customers through service recovery, by using information from complaints to improve both operational and organisational-wide processes and by satisfying and retaining employees.

In Johnston (2004, p.131), the same author concludes that:

“Dealing with problems and queries appears to be a critical determinant as to whether an organisation is perceived as excellent or poor. Customers much prefer an organisation to deliver its promise but are prepared to accept problems.”

In fact, Roch (2004, p. 25) concludes that:

“citizens with low trust in government that monitor government more closely will translate negative personal experiences into negative perceptions of collective-level experiences. The resulting political judgements will have larger degree of bias, and these biased judgements may lead to the creation of an environment in which it is difficult for government to succeed. Thus, this research suggests that what might appear to government officials as changes in the level of citizens’ satisfaction with government services, may in fact be the effect of the changing levels of trust on the relationship between citizens’ perceptions of personal and collective-level experiences.”

This may indicate the lesser value of the general annual or biennial satisfaction surveys. The general opinion from the above supports the Parsimonius e-Government Management Theory that I outlined earlier in the blog.

Another survey approach is to measure the gap between service expectations and what is delivered, which is explored and described by Accounts Commission for Scotland (1999, p. 3) which states that: “It is only by explicitly assessing expectations as well as perceptions that we can determine whether there are any service quality gaps in terms of the services we provide.”

In terms of customer metrics the U.S. General Services Administration (2005.p. 92) lists eight practical guidelines” around citizen satisfaction information. The first has a quantitative “value” of satisfaction for use as a yardstick against trends, the second proposes using qualitative information for areas where they are not meeting expectations, the third employs satisfaction information to correlate performance against performance metrics to ensure best use of resources. The fourth guideline encourages the use of surveys at the end of a contact or within reasonable timescales.

Considering whether to call the pubic customers or citizens, the debate was developed by Denhardt & Denhardt (2000, p. 555) in their critique of New Public Management where as the fourth of seven lessons they propose that:

“The public interest results from a dialogue about shared values, rather than the aggregation of individual self-interests. Therefore, public servants do not merely respond to the demands of “customers,” but focus on building relationships of trust and collaboration with and among citizens. […] Government also serves those who may be waiting for service, those who may need the service even though they are not actively seeking it, future generations of service recipients, relatives and friends of the immediate recipient, and so on. There may even be customers who don’t want to be customers – such as those receiving a speeding ticket.”

References

Denhardt, R. B., Denhardt, J.V., (2000). “The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering.” Public Administration Review 60(6): 549 – 559.

Johnston, R. (1995). “The determinants of service quality: satisfiers and dissatisfiers.” International Journal of Service Industry Management 6(5): 53 -71.

Johnston, R. (2001). “Linking complaint managment to profit.” International Journal of Service Industry Management 12(1): 60 – 69.

Johnston, R. (2004). “Towards a better understanding of service excellence.” Managing Service Quality 14(2/3): 129 – 133.

Roch, C. H. (2004). Using Citizens’ Judgements as an Accountability Mechanism in Democratic Governance: Considering Perceptions of Personal and Collective Experience. Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science association. Chicago, IL.

Shewart, W. A. (1986). Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control. New York, Dover Publications

U.S. General Services Administration (2005). Improving Citizen Customer Service, U.S. General Services Administration

Leave a Comment » | Metrics, customer satisfaction, e-government | Tagged: Denhardt, Johnston, Roch, Shewhart | Permalink
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Bread and circuses

July 15, 2008

Juvenal in the Satires referred to the political practice of populism as the people abdicating their duties for ‘bread and circuses’, this compares with the emphasis placed in traditional Roman society upon ‘civis Romanus sum’ or ‘I am a Roman citizen’, by which the privilege of being a member of Roman society was balanced by the acceptance of rights and duties.

What has this to do with e-government? Its back to the current practice of describing citizens as customers! By talking about customer need, satisfaction or whatever I would contend that we are in danger of offering them ‘bread and circuses’, and forgetting to associate it with the privilege of citizenship and all it entails, such as the duties.

This was captured in a Canadian document of 1996, ‘A Strong Foundation – Report of the Task Force on Public service, Values and Ethics’ from a group chaired by John C. Tait QC. Tait’s task force picks up on the tensions between treating citizens as user, customer or client and makes a number of important points such as on page 36:
“In every public service transaction or activity, the true public servant must be alive to issues of equity and fairness to a degree that is rarely required of private sector managers.”
Tait’s report also identifies the conflict between New Public Management (NPM) and public administration but importantly does not state that we mustn’t use the expressions but be actively aware of the tensions they introduce. We can call the citizen a customer but ensure that both the public servant and the citizen are aware of their respective duties and obligations.

With government’s concern over active citizenship I purport that it is time to focus on the expectations of citizenship and that this can be used to encourage feedback on services and assistance in improving or developing them.

Leave a Comment » | Metrics, customer satisfaction, e-government | Tagged: Canada, citizenship, Juvenal, NPM, Tait | Permalink
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Tail wagging dog?

July 13, 2008

The document produced by the Improvment & Development Agency ‘Reducing avoidable contact – a gude to NI 14′ only further confirms the limited value of this ministerial indicator.

On page 13 it states that an approach is being exploited that will “design services that reflect the needs of customers not arbitrary targets or performamnce measures”, which seem to contradict the ‘raison d’etre’ of NI 14 itself?

On page 18 is the statement “Understanding the demand and thus avoidable contact will not necessarily be easy”, which is true but I can’t see how the relationship has been established at this stage, ‘avoidable contact’ or ‘failure demand’ cannot by themselves indicate where the problem exists, they indicate an issue with the whole system of in the case of a summary indicator, the entirity of council services.

On page 21 we have the very obvious: “local authorities should look for what is regularly (in other words predictably) being raised by customers as a problem”. I would argue that regularity and predicatbility are an indication that the citizen has waited too long! The first report of a problem. or dissatisfaction, should set alarm bells ringing, if only quietly!

Primarily, page 34 says it all: “Finally, we should not forget the contribution of customers themselves. Not only will they often help you to identify instances of avoidable contact (…), they may also be able to suggest improvements (…). You may therefore want to consider how you can pick up key instances of avoidable contact in any surveys or focus groups you run with citizens. And where your analysis is telling you there is a problem is a particular service area or customer group, you will need to think how best to get customer input into the redesign of the service.”

Which all seems to be to be the tail wagging the dog! If the systems are designed around the citizen in the first place and recording of dissatisfaction is in place and actioned, the ‘avoidable contact’ will be only what is required as part of the system, where legislation enforces it for example and which central government needs to resolve or leave. Some of the classic examples are around electoral registration where an e-form can be made available but cannot be returned electronically, since it requires a signature and then must be returned by post or face-to-face, which probably falls in the realm of exceptional circumstances (page 40).

Leave a Comment » | Metrics, NI14, customer satisfaction, e-government | Tagged: demand, IDeA. avoidable contact | Permalink
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NI14 – the new moneypit for IT suppliers?

July 10, 2008

A very recent promotion by a local government supplier included the following statement:

“In line with the objectives detailed in the NI14 indicator councils will be expected to halve ‘avoidable contact’ with citizens by 2011 and simplify lengthy, complicated processes, whilst reducing costs. It has been identified that face to face interactions with customers cost £9 per enquiry, telephone interactions cost £5 and web interactions just 12p. An average Local Authority that has 180,000 face to face interactions in a year could make a saving of approximately £799,200 if, in line with the objectives set by NI14 this number was halved to 90,000 (based on real figures).”

The supplier concerned hadn’t read the IDeA guidance since it hadn’t been published by that stage and was relying, I presume, on the earlier Cabinet Office information. However my main contention would be that Varney was asking for a 50% reduction in ‘avoidable contact’ by 2011, not for it to more than disappear!Even the IDeA guidance states that the private sector has 40 to 60 % ‘avoidable contact’ currently and only a few pilot authorities have actually started measuring it and attempting to reduce it. According to NWEGG the channel costs are £7.81, £4.00 and 17p respectively, which are slightly cheaper than those quoted, although there are a range of values being currently quoted however other research indicates that these vary greatly by service and an average figure may be meaningless as well as probably varying greatly by authority!

Anyway, I am completely befuddled by the figures in the example! Are we to presume that all the services were face-to-face? Or can we move some to telephone, losing some ‘avoidable contact’ in the process, but since this was a web firm I presume they are all being dealt with by e-forms, saving even more money.

It is thinking (or lack of) like this that does a dis-service to public service and the service to the public…

Leave a Comment » | Metrics, NI14, e-government | Tagged: cabinet office, IDeA, NI14, NWEGG | Permalink
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NI14 Guidance released

July 9, 2008

The long awaited guidance to the National Performance Indicator 14 (avoidable contact) has been released onto the Improvement & Development Agency’s web site (64 page PDF).

Depending upon how you view these things it was a good day or bad one, since it also coincided with the new White Paper from the DCLG (157 pages {PDF, 1809 Kb), which also has things to say about civic engagement, making information available and other matters.

Importantly for this research, the first document states on page 13 that ‘we are exploiting and approach that will help us to…design services that reflect the needs of customers not arbitrary targets or performance measures.’ Which rather amuses me when we are actually talking about an indicator apparently designed to measure ‘failure demand’ but rebranded for Ministerial purposes to avoid the word ‘failure’ and also John Seddon’s interest in the concept! Especially when ‘failure demand’ is not considered something to be measured but to be ‘designed out’ of processes…

Unfortunately, whilst the ultimate aim is laudable, we are likely to be creating an entire industry of NI14 measurers in the process. The company rol which produces GovMetric gets a good mention in the guidance since they’re developing their package to support NI14, which may be an easy way of getting both dissatisfaction data and NI14, at a cost, but if you do it manually there is still a significant outlay in obtaining statistically significant data.

‘Que sera, sera’ as Doris Day sang or ‘O que sera’ as they apparently say in Portugal – whatever will be, will be!

Leave a Comment » | NI14, customer satisfaction, e-government | Tagged: DCLG, Doris Day, White Paper | Permalink
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The Great E-mancipator

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Some of July’s literature findings

Bread and circuses

Tail wagging dog?

NI14 – the new moneypit for IT suppliers?

NI14 Guidance released

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