Community user relations: promote your best practices

The AFNOR Citizen Experience Barometer is a national observatory that tracks customer service and user relationship management practices in public institutions. It highlights those that have innovated. The 10th edition, launched on February 7, 2022, will conclude on April 8. Until then, check back on this page every week for a new best practice.

Every year since 2012, the AFNOR Group has compiled the Citizen Experience Barometer, a tool that scrutinizes the communication channels used by public institutions (city halls, departmental and regional councils, etc.) to ensure high-quality user relations. Based on mystery shopping in the field, online review platforms, and social media, it measures the key determinants of user satisfaction: accessibility, responsiveness, courtesy, personalization, wait times, efficiency of transfers, and complaint handling. 

Why not give it a try? The 10th edition will conclude on April 8, 2022. The more local governments that participate, the more the barometer will be enriched with best practices from all of them! 

Here are a few of these best practices

Best practice #1: Incorporate a sense of community into your visitor reception efforts

Customer service is at the heart of your organization: it would be a shame to make it an individual responsibility. Project-based management involves getting people from different departments to work together. Long live cross-functional collaboration!

Best practice #2: Vary the pace of your assessments

We often tend to wait until the end of the year to evaluate ourselves… and sometimes a user’s feedback can get lost in the shuffle! Opt for continuous evaluation to make it easier to pivot your organization and become more agile.

Best practice #3: Increase the number of listening sensors

Satisfaction surveys, feedback from elected officials, complaints, minutes from school boards and/or user committees… The channels through which public institutions gather feedback are diverse! Learn how to identify, centralize, and analyze them to measure and assess user satisfaction.

Best Practice #4: Value the volunteer support provided by backup teams

One unexpected event, and your call center team is overwhelmed. Put together a volunteer backup team, and be sure to recognize this one-time commitment. How? By assigning a dedicated FTE to track the volunteer hours worked, or by acknowledging the customer service skills they’ve acquired.