Development Management Customer Satisfaction Surveys - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Hi Brian, Whilst we're not a council, we are very interested in customer feedback. We just started a new process where we are emailing event delegates a few months down the line to see if, having had some time to process the learning/thinking/opportunities from the events, they think it was worthwhile and what could we do better next time. I sent the first of these two weeks ago. Email design here: http://www.pas.gov.uk/pas/aio/1521751 Inspired by: http://smiley.37signals.com/ The email was opened by 46% of the 230 recipients with 33% of recipients clicking one of the rating ‘faces’ and 17% completing the online survey (this despite a known issue where council IT depts are blocking the Google form we are using). I think that is OK. I do know that the returns for the customer satisfaction surveys that are being done as part of the benchmarking club have been considerably lower. We intend to publish our results along with what we’ll be doing in response. I hope this will encourage people to respond next time as they can see that we are listening and doing something in response to their comments. Are you tracking opens/clicks for your emails? Can you ID where people are ‘falling out’ of the feedback process? Cheers, John.

Thanks for that John, we do know that all the emails with the css link are opened, as everyone is keen to see their Notice of Decision which is attached. Maybe we should think about sending it as a separate email, then we could do more monitoring eg how many were opened etc. Re Benckmarking customer satisfaction, in Nov 2010 we sent out the cards, this time we have used the electronic version, so it will be interesting to see if there is a difference in take up.

Yeah, I'd imagine a request for feedback could get easily lost alongside the decision notice, though you might be able to counter this with a strong visual design. Makes me think about this university acceptance letter discussed on Edward Tufte's website: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00007Q It would be interesting to see the results of any trial of sending it separately - perhaps a week, fortnight or month after the decision notice and see how the open/clickthrough rates compare. I'm not sure how much contact you have with applicants post-decision but you would be covering that then, too... John.

Thanks John, lots to think about, and I am attracted to the clickable faces to give an instant headline rating, and something we will pursue.

We used to do annual user surveys to recent Agents/applicants. This was last done late 2008. The reason we haven't done one in recent times was the low response rate that occurred during the last couple of rounds. I was definitely picking up in some that did respond that questionnaire fatigue had set it. Hence, we gave it a break! I think regular agents particularly suffered from this, obviously. What I recall, the response rate was in the region of 25%, not brilliant. It would be interesting to see the PAS findings after such a break in our district. John

Alternative to emails/questionnaires: phone calls to a random sample of service users, e.g. agents for all decisions sent in week x. Ask for a score out of ten, and what could be done to make it a ten. It helps if you have had a quick look at the database first. Advantages: the randomised sample gives good quality data; users are able to identify what is important to them (in their own words); the service can have an option to raise specific points identified by the service itself. Agents seems to like the personal contact and the chance to give direct feedback. Those making the calls enjoy getting positive feedback.

@john - unlikely to hit 25%, I think. @steve - like this very much. have you done this? be interesting to hear about what you found out and if you've changed anything in response (& what kind of things?) Cheers, John.

Steve, very interested in your telephone survey, could I call you about it ? If you could drop me an email with some contact details bryan.cadman@bristol.gov.uk

We are about to launch our Customer Survey satisfaction on 5th September. This is the 3rd year that we have run a survey. The take up in 2009 was a return of 601 questionnairs including 31% on line responses and in 2010 only 235 responses again with 31% on line. We are trying to push for a better response this year with printed forms, e-forms on website and internal intranet site. Its a lot of work but good to get customer feedback.

We have found that even with controversial regeneration consultations that we at best received a 10% online and 90% paper based split. Many people that work on computers do not like to go online in their out of hours time and there is still a significant proportion of the public that do not use ICT. Good practice would also suggest a variety of consultation measures rather than relying on one approach. (sorry, used to be the consultation lead in East Devo prior to moving into the planning field).

Hi Sharon, I would like to find out more on what Plymouth are doing, can you drop me an email to bryan.cadman@bristol.gov.uk Thanks

Hi Kelvin, seems a long time since myfirst post on this!! But we have now run a CSS for users of the planning system, ie agents/applicants, for the last 2 years.  The 2013 results are here.  We have lots of free text comments, and we are working on a second report responding to the themes made in the comments.

We are also (1 Oct 2013) doing a Building Regulations & Standards one.

Thanks Both

Kelvin

This has been very useful. At the begining of the year Uttlesford sent out a survey with each decision and had 1 response. Not helpful. But looking at how it has been tackled from other Council's and we have sent out 1 survey to all applicant/agents that have submitted an application in a one year period, The first week and we have received 78 electronic responses with two weeks left I feel we should have some useful data.   Bryan I would appreciate seeing a copy of your Building Regulations Survey would you be kind enough to email me a copy?  ahowells@uttlesford.gov.uk     Thanks                                                        Ann

Hi Ann, the survey is still live and I will send you the link.  Once it is closed, I am happy to post a further comment on how it went.