University of Twente Student Theses

Login

Een KCC in de gemeente Oldenzaal!: wat wil de burger?

Dijk, D.M. van (2011) Een KCC in de gemeente Oldenzaal!: wat wil de burger?

[img] PDF
2MB
Abstract:The government, municipalities specifically, has got more attention for customer orientation and better customer service. Due to various developments, the relationship between customer and provider is of increasing interest in the public sector. An expression of this development in the Netherlands is the so-called customer contact center (CCC). The CCC is considered as a tool which makes a contribution to better service and customer orientation. The municipal CCC must become the entrance for all public services, and is the organizational part that takes care of all the various contacts with the citizen and handles as much as possible. Very short these are the main points: - Increasing the availability and accessibility of the government - In 2015 municipalities are the recognizable portal for all questions to the government (government is considered as an entity) - The CCC as a quick and recognizable entrance for the entire government - The citizen chooses himself which channel it uses to get contact with the government - Citizens will always get fast and well answers, irrespective of the chosen channel - Citizens are helped directly or well referred (even to other government agencies) - One time asking a question and one time passing on information - Municipalities settle 80% of questions to government in one time good Box I.: Main points CCC (Nationale Ombudsman, 2010; Hiemstra & De Vries, 2007) The municipality of Oldenzaal thinks service is important. Therefore, the municipality of Oldenzaal is busy with developing a local customer contact center (CCC). A basic assumption of the CCC for the municipality of Oldenzaal is to improve the service to the citizen and for this reason it is good to know what the needs of the citizen are. In this study the CCC is not mentioned explicitly everywhere, because it is a mean to improve municipal services and not an aim in itself. It is basically an organizational model that aims at ensuring that the external customer experiences an improved service. For this reason a large part of the research concerns the municipal service. The municipality of course gladly wants that the CCC is really customer-oriented and connects with the needs of citizens. The question remains what those needs of the inhabitants of Oldenzaal are. In Oldenzaal there have been done studies on services, but mainly these concerned especially quantitative information and the needs of the citizens concerning the service have never been investigated. Knowing these needs can ensure more customer orientation and better service. To meet expectations, the municipality should continue to improve services. To be customer-oriented government agencies sometimes make assumptions about what is important and good for the customer without actually knowing it, Thomassen (2007) says. He states that organizations copy concepts from each other without questioning whether the customer need this. One pitfall is that the municipality is thinking for the public and not asks the public itself what it wants, while the citizen is the one that eventually assesses service. For this reason one strives more and more, within the framework of customer orientation, to map the needs and experiences of the customer. This study tries to find out what the needs of residents of Oldenzaal are. The results of this research can be taken along at the development of the CCC. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the service to the citizen. For this reason the objective for this research is as follows: Getting insight in the needs of inhabitants of the municipality of Oldenzaal concerning municipal service. The question on which this research wants an answer is the following: Which needs do the inhabitants of Oldenzaal have as a customer of the municipality Oldenzaal concerning the municipal service and what does this mean for the customer contact centre? Below the questions are listed that are answered to be able to answer the main question. 1. What does being a customer of inhabitants mean for the relationship with the municipality? 2. What is the municipal service? 3. How is the need of residents concerning municipal services to be determined? 4. What is the need of residents of Oldenzaal concerning municipal services? 5. What do these needs of the residents mean for the customer contact center? II These questions have been answered in the preceding report. The figure on the right shows briefly in what way the investigation has been done. The first three research questions are particularly answered at the first two steps. Question 4 and 5 belong mainly to the next two steps. The combination of this and answering the main question belongs to the last step. The development of the measuring instrument is qualitative and applying it is quantitative. Briefly a number of findings are now described. A customer of a municipality (or another government organization) is another type of customer than a customer of a market organization. The government has a monopoly position and as a result of that the customer is designated on the government. Also, there is no direct relationship between paying and enjoying. The citizen is also not a passive recipient of services and products like in the market, but has a complex relationship with the government. The citizen is not only a customer, but for example also a subject and voter. This has to do with the government as a protector of the public interest and the citizens who themselves pursue especially their individual interests. This does not always go well together, which may mean that the citizen does not always gets what he wants. The government cannot always do what the customer as a citizen wants and for this reason the government cannot be completely customer oriented. However, in order to ensure that the government will meet the needs of the people there are several different codes, such as the Dutch code of good governance, the Civil Service Code and principles for services from the National Ombudsman. Municipal service is in fact everything that a municipality does. The provision of services is distinguished by a number of characteristics from the provision of goods. These are the indivisibility of production and consumption, the intangibility of services, perishability of services and heterogeneity of services. These properties make that provision of services is more complicated and more difficult to measure and standardize. Although municipal service concerns everything that the municipality does, in a customer contact center (CCC) it concerns especially services where there is client contact. In the case of this research it concerns the individual services, the services involving primarily individual contact with the municipality. The most important aim of the CCC is improving the quality of service. The term quality has several meanings, but the customer-oriented approach of quality is mainly about meeting the needs of the customer. It combines quality with customer orientation. Quality and satisfaction are two terms which look very similar from the customer-oriented approach. Quality would lead to satisfaction, so if people are satisfied there is quality in their eyes. Quality and satisfaction are also linked to customer focus, because this leads to satisfaction. SERVQUAL is a widely used model for measuring service quality. It also assumes the customer-oriented approach of quality. A measuring device belongs to this model. This device measures on the basis of a number of aspects how customers assess the service on a number of important factors. To be able to measure this, people get a questionnaire with aspects on which they react on by a Likertscale. SERVQUAL does have a few shortcomings, so it was adapted to be suitable for this research. By means of measuring the judgment and importance of aspects of service something can be said concerning the needs of the customer. Through regression analysis it is also possible to determine what impact this has on the overall assessment of the service. A large adaptation for this research is that a lot aspects of service provision have been collected which are mentioned in several documents, and also came from conversations within in the organization. These aspects are combined into a number of aspects that fit the context of this investigation. Ultimately, a questionnaire has been developed and has been sent to a group of 1200 randomly selected residents. Of this, more than 30% returned. The data from this return has been analyzed, and there has been looked at the average importance and judgments of aspects. Also, for factors (groups of aspects) from the literature and factor analysis there has been looked at importance and satisfaction. In addition, of these factors is calculated what the impact was on the overall assessment that people gave about the service. How people judge indicates for how much their needs are met. What they think is important shows their needs, and impact on satisfaction shows what matters to the overall judgment. Taking conclusions/ making requirements Processing and analysing results Applying measuring instrument Developing measuring instrument Pre research/ literature research III Through analyzing the data from the questionnaire, several conclusions can be drawn regarding the needs of residents. Below the highlights are mentioned. Overall satisfaction Customer orientation, quality and satisfaction all three have to do with meeting the needs of residents. Customer orientation and quality both ensure satisfaction. For this reason, residents have been asked to examine how they judge this concerning the service, to see whether those needs are met. It shows that residents are generally satisfied, because they evaluate the services overall positive with a report rating of 7. As a report rating a 7 means largely sufficient and an 8 means good. 7 is sufficient but still not good yet. Satisfaction Satisfaction is an evaluation of the current service. It is an assessment focused on the outcomes of the current service policy. The more satisfied citizens are, the more the service provides in certain needs. Then performance and expectations fit better together. Factors where residents are less satisfied about provide less in a need than factors where residents are more satisfied about. Residents are least satisfied with: - Easy and free opening; Knowledge and understanding of the customer; The digital channel; Flexibility and extra attention. Residents are most satisfied with: - Helpful and customer friendliness; Physical features and appearance; Accurate and reliable; Personal and certain, individual and integrity; Fast, relevant and competent. Importance To get a picture of the needs of residents they were asked how important they find certain aspects of service. - Residents find the least important: Physical features and appearance; Consistent results, The digital channel; Knowledge and understanding of the customer. Residents find most important: - Accurate and reliable; Helpful and customer friendliness; Personal and certain, individual and integrity; Informing bright and clear communication. Influence on satisfaction / impact To get a picture of the needs of the inhabitants it is not only good to know what locals themselves say is important, but also to look at what has the most influence on satisfaction. At factors with a higher impact, improvements have larger influence on satisfaction then factors with low impact. The most impact on satisfaction: - Accurate and reliable; Fast, relevant and competent; Accessible, simple, and easily contactable. The least impact on satisfaction: - Easy and free opening; Physical features and appearance; The digital channel. Aspects Aspects which are covered in factors and clearly distinguish themselves from the average in terms of importance and satisfaction specify the scores on factors and make them more concretely. The next three aspects score clearly below average in terms of satisfaction and clearly above average in terms of importance. According to the importance-performance diagram, used in this research, therefore there has to be invested in these aspects. -Explaining why something is not possible (or is possible) -The clarity concerning your rights and obligations (under what conditions you are entitled to what products and services) -Improving services in response to signals from residents Table I.: Aspects to invest in IV All aspects of service provision from the study are important for the inhabitants of Oldenzaal. The opinion was also generally positive. For the factors which are derived from this applies the same. Some factors have more influence on satisfaction than others. By looking at the importance, assessment, and influence the needs of residents have been determined. For setting up a customer contact center this customer needs especially mean that which has a high impact and importance is important to pay attention to at the institution. This is also important for the factors and aspects which have low satisfaction, but that citizens consider important. The CCC is a mean to improve service and by knowing the needs of citizens a direction can be given to what improve exactly means. By knowing the needs of residents, it is possible to set up a CCC that takes into account the needs of residents. The aim of the customer contact center (CCC) is ultimately to contribute to improved service and customer orientation. The aim is not in itself a CCC. With a CCC it is for example possible to improve things behind the scenes so that before the scenes results are delivered. Knowing the needs helps to determine where the primary attention needs to go to. The aspects which were presented to the residents also concern service from without the CCC.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Clients:
Gemeente Oldenzaal
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:88 social and public administration
Programme:Public Administration MSc (60020)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61136
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page