Exciting! Customers Note Improvement in Manzini’s Service Delivery
…from previous score of 50%, Council gets 61.8% rating in recent customer satisfaction survey
Indications are that there is an improvement in the way that the Municipal Council of Manzini provides service to its customers.
A recent customer satisfaction survey which was conducted by Council indicates a satisfaction level of 61.8 percent on a number of services that the Municipality provides. This indicates an 11.8 percent improvement from the last survey which was conducted during the 2015/16 financial year. Interestingly, the survey results also highlight areas in which Council is presently not doing so well.
It is worth-mentioning that, through its 2019-2024 Strategic Plan, Council adopted a customer-centric approach with the view to meeting customer requirements and achieving greater service delivery satisfaction levels. One of the means to achieving that goal was going to be through implementation of the ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System which drives the culture of continuous service improvement and customer satisfaction within the organization.
The customer satisfaction survey is an exercise through which Council periodically measures the level of customer satisfaction on municipal services rendered. It also enables the Municipality to better understand its customers’ requirements and further stimulate within the organization a culture of continuous improvement towards meeting those requirements. It also helps identify service delivery shortfalls in the city so that appropriate interventions can be solicited.
As part of the survey, a questionnaire was circulated during the 2018 Integrated Development Plan (IDP) stakeholder submission meetings which were held in all 12 municipal wards. The questionnaire covered a number of service delivery aspects including township roads maintenance, maintenance of the road network in the Central Business District (CBD), management of overgrowth in the city, refuse collection in the city, street sweeping and cleanliness of streets, whether or not customers received feedback on requested services, adequacy and efficiency of available options for rates payment, maintenance of recreational parks, public toilet services, processing of building plans, special consent and rezoning applications, citywide health inspection services and the level of customer etiquette amongst employees of Council.
The survey results indicate that municipal services that customers are most happy about are the adequacy and efficiency of available options for payment of rates and other services, customer care by employees, refuse collection as well as processing of building plans, special consent and rezoning applications.
The results of the survey further show that there is improvement required in the areas of street sweeping, citywide health inspections, maintenance of public toilets, maintenance of recreational parks as well as provision of feedback on requested services.
Where Council was rated lowly is in the area of maintenance of township roads, maintenance of roads in the Central Business District and management of overgrowth.
…CUSTOMER RATINGS ON COUNCIL SERVICES
…STEPS TO BE TAKEN GOING FORWARD
In light of the outcome of the customer satisfaction survey, the Municipal Council of Manzini has set out to carryout a number of interventions that are aimed at improving on the services that were lowly rated in terms of customer satisfaction. The following are some of the activities that will be undertaken in order to achieve the organizational goal of continuous improvement;
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Investigate the root causes for the lowly rated services and devise innovative strategies in order to achieve improvement
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Undertake continual training on good customer service as the organization’s desire is to score 100% satisfaction on this aspect
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Establishment of a customer service team that will monitor and advise departments on areas of service improvements
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Introduction of an overall organizational monitoring and evaluation system
…GLOBAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE STUDENTS LEARN FROM COUNCIL
A group of 15 students studying Health and Safety Management at the Global University College in Manzini recently had an insightful field trip to the Municipal Council of Manzini as part of the requirements for their course. The students were interested in food safety (food grading), waste management and landfill operations, building designs and construction, food sampling and laboratory testing. As part of their tour, they visited the Council laboratory and landfill where they had the opportunity to learn how these facilities operate. They were also taken to one of the leading supermarkets in Manzini wherein they learnt how the food grading exercise is conducted. One of the Council building inspectors also took them on site where they learnt how building inspections are carried out. The students expressed gratitude to Council for allowing them an opportunity to gain practical experience on these aspects of their study. They expressed that the Municipal Council of Manzini had indeed proven that it cared about the success of the education sector and the future of the youth of Manzini. The following pictures were taken during the visit…
