Government agencies face a difficult problem: Their customers demand services that few agencies have the resources to adequately provide. A recent McKinsey Quarterly article, “When Citizens Are Your Customers,” by Sebastien Katch and Tim Morse, described how one US federal agency struggled to balance demand at its call centers and paper-processing facilities when its employees had to juggle their time to do both. As a result, “during times of peak demand, agents answered less than three-quarters of phone calls to the agency, which also processed less than half of all paper applications within its target response time.”

Their solution? The agency used customer satisfaction data to identify the point in each area when customers went from satisfied to dissatisfied and set performance targets that reflected these breakpoints. The targets helped managers with resource allocation while raising customer satisfaction.

The City of Coral Springs, a 2007 Baldrige Award recipient, takes this a step farther. In its application summary, it states that “employees at all levels are dedicated to building relationships with customers and exceeding their expectations.” To facilitate this, the city implemented a Premier Customer Service Program that includes training, accountability, recognition, reinforcement, measurement, and improvement.

The program is based on five value dimensions:

• Presentation: Creating a highly professional and caring environment
• Responsiveness: Anticipating and fulfilling needs of customers
• Reliability: Consistently delivering superior quality products and services
• Reassurance: Increasing confidence through knowledge, competency, and integrity
• Empathy: Creating and building relationships to exceed expectations

From 1999 to 2007, resident customer satisfaction never dipped below 93% and business customer satisfaction climbed to 96% in 2007.

Unlike the federal agency described in the McKinsey article, the City of Coral Springs took a systematic approach to understanding the customer requirements that drive satisfaction and implementing a program that helps employees exceed those expectations. And that enables them to serve their citizens better.

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