Customer Service Initiative
Excellence in customer service is an important priority for the City of Grand Rapids. We believe that we exist for the benefit of our customers. When customers experience excellent customer service interactions with city staff during which staff responds to their questions and complaints promptly, professionally and with a high standard of care, they feel valued, heard, and satisfied with our performance.
Customer service is the responsibility of all staff---not just those employees specifically vested with customer service responsibilities.
Our customers include everyone—taxpayers, citizens, visitors, workers, residents, non residents and other city employees.
Additionally, as we continue to operate with significant fiscal challenges, we are called upon to deliver quality customer service while we maximize operational efficiency, increase productivity and reduce costs. Thus, a key element of the City’s transformation process will be to implement a comprehensive, multifaceted customer service transformation plan that allows us to accomplish our objectives.
Key elements of our customer service strategy will include immediate, short-term and long- term solutions as described below:
reviewing all operations with customer contact to ensure that we are providing strong customer service to our taxpayers;
working with select departments to address immediate customer service needs;
convening a Customer Service Transformation Team to develop customer service standards and guiding principles for the organization;
providing comprehensive customer service training to our employees;
implementing a 311 system; and
developing performance measures to ensure accountability.