As if to prove this practitioner/academic right, the latest Accenture report “Leadership in Customer Service” highlights several of the issues that I’ve been putting forward, these are two of what Accenture call “enabling practices”:
“Engage. Listen. Respond—Government should actively engage citizens, service users and other stakeholders in defining outcomes and designing services. Through educating, informing and involving citizens, government can then begin to build a more positive trust-based relationship, which will lead to coproduction of public value.”
and
“Be transparent. Be accountable. Ask for and act on feedback—Establishing public trust is the goal. Citizens want governments to share their policies and programs more actively and regularly. Doing so actually enhances the economic and social value of this information, fosters a broader awareness and sense of ownership among citizens, and a willingness to act as coproducers of public value.”
If that wasn’t enough of the material I’ve proposed their conclusion states:
“What must happen to change citizen sentiment? First, governments should achieve the four enabling practices described and discussed in the full report. They should also move the customer service focus beyond the quality of the service transaction toward a relationship with citizens that fosters deeper trust, improves the relevance and transparency of government decision making, improves service design and delivery, and encourages a “coproductive” relationship based on shared responsibility.”
It quite a long report but good to see!
The Great E-mancipator 
Hurrah – Just read that last paragraph and it really struck a chord. Too many people that should know better can’t get beyond the quality of interaction and see that in many cases this is a very small part of the overall service quality. I shall be quoting that paragraph to help make my case.