By having direct access to police officers assigned to, and responsible for, a specific geographical area of the city, citizens have felt more confident that their concerns are being addressed. Citizen volunteers of all ages and ethnic backgrounds have helped to staff the elementary school NPSCs. The ability to deliver customer service excellence is the single most valuable asset public organizations possess. Citizens, elected officials and many public employees themselves want and expect service equal to the standard set by many of the top-performing private organizations. We have moved into the era of service management, where public organizations must think strategically about service, build a strong service orientation around and into their future, and manage the design, development and delivery of services effectively and efficiently.
Service management means turning the whole organization into a customer-driven entity.
In April 1989, the City of Inglewood initiated its Service Excellence Program with the goal of identifying each department's internal and external customers, developing systems and processes designed to improve customer services, and providing training and resources to support the service orientation. Five interrelated phases comprise Inglewood's Service Excellence Program, the main goal of which is to develop a service-minded culture throughout the city organization. During the first phase, top management commitment to customer satisfaction is established and a clear vision of each department's service mission statement, workable and easy to understand by the employees, is developed. In the second phase, actions are taken by employee task teams to implement service delivery improvements by identifying key blockages to delivering quality customer service and proposing solutions to removing those blockages. Phase three includes training all employees in the basic customer service skills necessary to figuring out the right actions and tactics to use with customers, along with the behavioral skills of dealing with a variety of customer behaviors.