Dispatch Center Customer Satisfaction Survey
Scope of Work
We propose working closely with you or others you designate to develop a survey tool that will help you understand how past customers feel about the service they received when they had an emergency and dialed 9-1-1. When residents call 911, it is often the worst day of their lives, and how dispatchers handle each customer is important. We understand the City is interested in hearing from their customers about how they were treated when they called. We will work with those you designate to develop a survey that accurately reflects how people feel about this critical service.
Proposed Plan of Work
We have a great deal of expertise in developing community surveys. Every year we conduct dozens of electronic surveys. This experience makes us adept at
▪Working with the client to attain the goals of the survey, ▪Developing clear questions that have only one meaning, ▪Providing a communication plan and accessibility that encourages participation, ▪Preparing understandable summaries of the survey results, and ▪Developing recommendations for the next steps.
We receive strong participation by developing an understanding of our client and providing anonymous web-based, email-based, and hard copy surveys. Based on this expertise, we have prepared the following work plan for the City of Palo Alto.
Activity 1 – Start Project
Baker Tilly will begin with a careful learning phase, starting with a planning meeting with you and others you designate. The purpose of the meeting is to ensure the plan of work and schedule are precisely tailored to your needs. Carol Jacobs, Managing Director, will meet with the City Manager, Police Chief and Fire Chief to develop the topics and themes for the community survey.
Activity 2 – Design 9-11 Community Customer Satisfaction Survey The design of the survey will be a collaborative effort between Baker Tilly and City staff. During this activity we will design a draft survey instrument based on our expert knowledge of municipal government, best practice survey questions, national standards for community engagement, and collaboration with City staff. We will provide a copy for the draft survey for review. Based on feedback from your project team we will add, remove, or edit questions.
While the draft survey will feature questions to capture customer satisfaction with the 9-1-1 service they receive, we often include demographic information to help Palo Alto leadership develop future training and identify issues the public may have with the service.
The survey will be designed to be completed online or on paper for those residents without access to computers, or those who do not have computer skills. The survey will be anonymous with the only potential identifying information being demographics of the respondents.
Activity 3 – Develop Communication Plan and Deploy Survey Prior to deploying the survey, we will create a communication plan that will promote participation in the survey. The plan will include steps to introduce the community engagement survey to residents and businesses. It will include working with the City’s project team to identify all available external communication tools that can be exploited to increase awareness and participation. Once we have created a draft communication plan, we will review it with the City’s project team and make any adjustments necessary based on feedback. This proposal includes translating the survey in up to 10 languages.
We will provide the city with a web-based survey to test prior to deploying it to residents and businesses. Based on the communication plan, we will deploy the customer satisfaction survey, and it will remain open until the close date of the agreed-upon survey.
During the survey period, we will monitor participation and provide updates to the City’s project team.
We will offer additional recommended language to encourage participation if needed, Activity 4 – Analyze Survey and Report Results, Including Recommendations for Improvement
After the survey closes, we will deliver the survey results to the City in multiple electronic formats including the database of responses, a PDF summary, charts, graphs or other formats, as needed. We will also provide the survey data in a format that allows review in crosstabs based on demographic information.
We will also provide a brief memorandum that includes the survey results and recommendations for improvements.
Project Team includes:
Kate Murdock
Carol Jacobs
John Burks – former Chief of Police, Brea CA
Mary Locey
Project cost: $25,000