Surveys Helps State Officials Assess New Customer Service Training
Goals are set, a program is designed, and training is implemented. Did it make a difference? That is what state officials wanted to learn when they enlisted the Vinson Institute to study the impact of a new training program that had recently been completed by employees in 12 state agencies.
The Office of Customer Service was established by executive order in January 2006 as part of Governor Sonny Perdue's stated goal to have the best customer service of any state in the nation. To that end, the office rolled out an extensive customer service training initiative that could eventually involve every state employee.
In the summer of 2009, Vinson Institute Survey Research and Evaluation Unit experts began an analysis that would provide officials with an objective, data-driven summary of the training program's impact and an assessment of its perceived value for those who had completed it, explains Rich Clark, unit director.
First, phone interviews were conducted with a select group of executives and managers and a random sample of staff from each of the agencies where more than 90 percent of the employees had completed the training. Their responses were analyzed to identify key themes and issues regarding the training that could be investigated further through a large Web-based survey of employees and management, Clark explains.
"The final report includes analysis of responses from some 1,728 staff and 842 management personnel," he says. "This measure allows officials to validate the training's effectiveness to date and also provides them with input for improving its value to future participants."
