Municipal Employees Treat Citizens as Customers
Published Jul 08, 2008
“How may I help?” is now the courteous greeting at Redondo Beach City Hall.
Folks conducting business with the city of Redondo Beach these days can expect to encounter smiling faces and can-do attitudes from the staff at city hall. And that goes for businesses in need of permits, licenses and other products of the municipal bureaucracy.
It’s all because of the Customer Service Academy, a series of workshops developed by Jonae Pistoresi, an instructor at Merced Community College.
Pistoresi created the customer-service workshops eight years ago, and soon afterward, the college partnered with chambers of commerce all over the state to teach their members such skills as time management, team building, communication and problem solving. Today, the Customer Service Academy is available through 90 of 109 community colleges in the state system.
The program consists of 10 modules, each of which involves two four-hour sessions. Pistoresi says the curriculum calls for lots of team activities, games and interaction among participants, who receive college credit for successfully completing the course.
Wayne Schell, president and chief executive officer of the California Association for Local Economic Development, recognized the need for this type of training in the public sector as well, and he approached Pistoresi. She concurred that plenty of business owners have had the experience of filling out a permit application on the pink form, for instance, only to be told – after a long wait in line – that they should have used the yellow form. In partnership with CALED, she tweaked the program for public employees and put on a pilot workshop for a small group of Redondo Beach senior officials.
Redondo Beach Assistant City Manager David Biggs says the first group of about 100 employees is now going through the Customer Service Academy, with a plan to train all employees over the next two to four years. Other cities are sending their employees to the academy, too, including Turlock, Los Banos and Merced, as well as Tuolumne and Merced counties.
Story by Carol Cowan
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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