Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCounty-wide Customer Service Strategy Plan County-wide Customer Service Strategy Plan First Stop Shop Prior Lake – May 27, 2014 1 Presenters Tracy Cervenka, Administrative Office Supervisor, Scott County Stacy Crakes, Business Development Manager, First Stop Shop Michelle Choudek, Onsite Engineering, Prior Lake EDA & First Stop Shop Advisory Committee Member 2 SCALE 601 Training Review Brief History of the First Stop Shop (FSS) Carlson Project/Recommendations Customer Service Strategy Plan 3 Review of SCALE Education Workshops Legos 101 – Transportation Corridor Basics Legos 201 – Land Use and Transportation Legos 301 – Support for Economic Development Legos 401 – Strategies for Success 501 – Case Studies in Economic Development 601 – County-wide Customer Service Strategy 2014 701 – County-wide Customer Service Strategy 2015 4 Brief History of the First Stop Shop 5 Unified Planning SCALE Unified Plan Charter - - adopted 2009 The goal of the Unified Economic Development, Land Use And Transportation Plan is to develop and implement a county-wide economic development strategy and integrated land-use and transportation plan that helps achieve the vision of providing enough employment in Scott County by 2030 to support 50% of the county's labor force, while respecting the authority of the cities and townships within to make planning decisions on the local level. 6 Engaging the Community Economic Development Strategy Group was formed in 2011 to identify specific strategies to further the goal. Members Commercial Real Estate Industry Business Community St. Francis Regional Medical Center School Districts TED member 7 Recommendations Public Sector Culture Build and promote a culture in the public sector with a priority for customer service, timeliness, accountability, and creative solutions. Incorporate business understanding and education as part of the SCALE “Legos” educational program. Create a SCALE “Legos” educational program for municipal and county community development and planning staff which focuses on business needs and perspectives. 8 First Stop Shop Formed TED and SCALE Endorsed May/June 2012 First Stop Shop Launched in November 2012 Full-Time Business Development Manager Part-Time Business Development Analyst 9 Scott County Jobs Goal GOAL: Enough jobs for 50% of our resident workforce in Scott County by 2030 2012 County Jobs = 40,803 jobs 2030 Jobs Target = 78,000 jobs. The County needs to grow an additional 37,197 jobs between 2012 and 2030! Over 18 years = 2,067 NET JOBS per year Tracy mentioned the jobs goal earlier Always like to put this into perspective Breaking this down by the numbers, based on the labor force projections for Scott County in 2030, this equates to just over 2,000 net new jobs created per year. 10 FSS – Primary Areas of Focus Database Pursuits Customer Service There were 3 areas of focus defined for the FSS in the first year; database, current pursuits, and customer service culture Some information on our progress on the database and current pursuits is included on the handout (under FSS Primary Areas of Focus) Customer Service Culture has been the hardest to tackle but we are finally making some progress on that item as well. 11 Carlson Project 12 Why are we even talking about this? Customer Service Report of the ED Strategy Group (SCALE 2011): Public Sector Culture 1. Build and promote a culture in the public sector with a priority for customer service, timeliness, accountability, and creative solutions. As Tracy mentioned earlier, customer service culture was identified by the SCALE Economic Development Strategy Group as part of the way to achieve our jobs goal. The Carlson Ventures Team was brought in this past fall to help us figure out where to start and bring an unbiased perspective to current customer service within the county. 13 Carlson Project Details Project Start: September 2013 Project Completion: December 2013 Their project started in September and wrapped up in December The process they went through included 3 phases: Information gathering and interviewing – met with development related staff in all 7 cities, county staff, FSS staff, and reached out to businesses in each of the communities (businesses identified by city staff) Compiled, reviewed, and analyzed the information they had gathered Developed a plan and recommendations for Scott County moving forward. 14 Business/Broker Feedback Room for improvement Opportunity to set ourselves apart Part of the Carlson report included feedback from the various businesses and brokers they talked with. The general consensus is that there is room for improvement and we have an opportunity to set ourselves apart Both of these were also outcomes from the SCALE ED Strategy Group in 2011. 15 Key Messages INDIVIDUAL SURPRISES Strong Armed No way out Quicker process One point of contact Early stage input Interpret ordinances consistently Proactive information Streamline process partner Here is a summary of the key messages identified in the business/broker feedback 3 Major Themes: Transparency and information up front are important – people don’t want surprises particularly late in the process Partnering to get things done vs. strong arming (being an “enforcer”) – make the outcome beneficial for all parties Streamlining processes to improve the experience and schedule 16 Business Feedback Summary Early stage input from Development Review Committees prior to a business finalizing plans to help save the business time and money. Feedback of feeling “strong armed.” The implication was that “if you don’t give us X, you don’t get the permit.” After so many sunk costs, there is really no way out. There were issues with interpreting zoning and ordinances consistently. We want to share with you some of the specific feedback the Carlson team gathered from businesses Run through comments 17 Business Feedback Summary Over the course of several months, the business kept getting individual surprises: $1.2-$1.3million from utility company for water connection At very end of the process, found out about parks and recreation fees for $70,000 At very end of the process, a week before the permit was to be issued, the city said it needed an extra 10 feet easement around the sides of the business property. “A small business owner builds once or twice in their lifetime. The city deals with development processes every day. They need to be understanding of that and treat the business respectfully.” Run through comments There is more feedback on the handout sheet When you look at it you’ll notice that not all of it applies to your community, but there are a couple things that are important to remember What one community does can negatively impact their neighbors This feedback was compiled from all of the cities in Scott County, so even though not all of these comments apply to your community, there are still some areas of improvement. 18 Carlson Recommendations Establish Cultural Expectations For County Customer Service Step 1 Carlson identified three steps: Cultural Expectations on a SCALE level Optimizing customer service on a City level Establishing a way to routinely measure progress and success 19 Carlson Team Suggested Workshops 3 SCALE Leadership Workshops – steering committee for commonality with city representatives Progress to Date 3 SCALE Leadership Workshops completed January – April 2014 Revised plan for future workshops based on input from SCALE workshops. 3 City Workshops – Process, Structure, Personality 1 SCALE Annual Review and Planning Workshop The Carlson team recommended doing this through 7 training sessions 3 SCALE level sessions to identify the vision and goals 3 City level sessions to optimize customer service within each city 1 annual review to evaluate how things are going and what can be done to continue making improvements moving forward Progress to date: Completed the 3 SCALE level sessions in January through April and have created a revised plan for future workshops based on the outcomes of those first three sessions. Going to let Bob share some more about the specific outcomes from those first 3 SCALE sessions and then I will wrap up with What’s Next. 20 Customer Service Strategy Plan 21 Mission Statement Mission Statement: In Scott County, we will set ourselves apart by working collaboratively with businesses to build trusted partnerships where owners and developers can be confident they will be treated fairly and responsively. 22 23 SCALE Customer Service Values & Strategies Values Relationships/Partnerships Transparent Responsive Efficient Accessible Knowledgeable Strategies Role Responsibility Transparent Processes Define Best Practices Attitude Training 24 What’s Next? We already completed the SCALE leadership workshops The Officials workshops like this one are now in progress We will then start a series of additional workshops with city staff to review processes, discuss pain points, identify best practices, talk about role responsibility, and bring that back into implementation within each of the cities. 25 What’s Next? Later this fall we are planning to have some customized customer service training sessions for city staff, hopefully through one of the technical colleges, geared toward government employees. There will be an annual review and planning workshop at the SCALE level to talk about outcomes and make sure we are making progress and seeing improvement We will wrap up all this training with a session and report back next spring with the councils, development staff, and various commissions tied to businesses and development. This will also include some discussion with each of you on the roles of elected and appointed officials and how we can best promote this culture. 26 What We Need From You Support Be Engaged Encourage Staff Participation This is going to be a major initiative and to make it work we need to have buy-in from everybody involved. It really needs to start at the top What we need from you is: Your ongoing support Be Engaged throughout the process Encourage staff participation throughout all of the sessions. We will be sending out periodic updates to each of you via email on the progress we’re making. We hope you’ll take the time to read those updates. 27 Questions? 28