Having posted recently upon the number of seemingly separate citizen satisfaction projects, I find another from the Improvment Service in Scotland! They have just published a report entitled “Improving the understanding of customer satisfaction & experience in Scottish local government.”
Although I don’t always agree with the conclusions drawn in the report, it does analyse the terms used, in contrast to the English Cabinet Office reports. This means that it considers what ‘satisfaction’, ‘experience’ and ‘opinion’ refer to, along with explaining why its chooses to use the term ‘customer’, as opposed to ‘citizen’. Importantly this is as much a work in progress, with an examination of current practice being presented along with some advisory measures to improve service.
The same week also sees another document appearing on MyCustomer.com, “Service service, service: the new public sector mantra“, which includes some excellent quotations from the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, Julie Spence, which some local and central government chiefs could learn from! Although working in local government might provide a reality check on some of the concepts in the document.
To add to a busy week’s reading there was an announcement by Mary Tetlow Associates that they are joining the bandwagon and promoting ‘customer insight’ at £350 a day workshops…I think the free Scottish document should be a first port of call – its excellent value and it was written by Tetlow Associates!
Posted by greatemancipator 
The Great E-mancipator 