“The results provided by the feedback devices remind us why we come to work every day. The reports provide a basis for strategic planning and decision-making.”
Customer experience data reveals development needs: Customer satisfaction regarding the City of Tampere’s social and health care services has improved significantly.
When the local residents are satisfied, the City has succeeded. This is known by the City of Tampere, which has designated customer satisfaction as one of the core goals of the City Strategy. However, the goal cannot be reached without effort, and indicators are needed for monitoring – customer experience data is perfect for this purpose.
When the decision was made to begin the systematic measurement of customer experience in Tampere, the City organisation arrived on a turnkey solution as the best option. The aim was to acquire the feedback system, user support, feedback devices, related deployment and maintenance services, and comprehensive result reporting from one partner so that City employees could focus their time on other things.
“It was also important to ensure that the system could serve large customer flows: it had to be fast and easy to use, accessible and reliable,” says Timo Tuurala, Head of Planning for the City of Tampere.
Multi-channelled customer experience measurement
The City chose Roidu as its partner and now uses the company’s service to measure customer experience in the context of social and health care services, for example. Feedback is collected at more than 40 locations and in all service groups from reception services to psychosocial support.
In addition to measuring customer experience in many locations, Tampere also conducts measurements across multiple channels..
“In the context of social and health care services, you can provide feedback using physical feedback devices, QR codes or online services. This year, dental health care has begun collecting feedback through a mobile solution, which involves sending a survey to the customer as a text message. The multi-channelled arrangement also enables providing feedback after service visits and when a customer cannot access a service despite attempting to do so,” Tuurala explains.
Since 2017, more than 170,000 feedback responses have been accumulated on social and health care services – the annual quantity of feedback collected is around 60,000. The data accumulated in Roidu’s system forms a unified database, which enables trend data and comparisons between units and points in time.
Massive improvement in customer experience
For the City of Tampere, customer experience data is an important part of the system for knowledge-based management, and every service point has a person in charge of feedback. Roidu provides this person with monthly report that includes open feedback in addition to statistical data. Regular feedback reports are also submitted to the Social and Health Care Committee and the management of the service area. These reports are also available on the City’s public websites. This means that any service user can view the results for a specific service point and compare perceived service quality.
If the experience data reveals development needs, the issues are addressed promptly, which shows.
“Largely due to the collection and utilisation of experience data, our service experience has improved significantly over the years. In 2017, the NPS of all units was 58, but now in 2021, it has already climbed to 69. Our best units achieve scores exceeding 90, which means that they are among the very best in the entire world. This is valuable information for us, which we would not know without experience data,” Tuurala says.
Good customer experiences improve quality of life and reduce the need for repeat visits
According to Timo Tuurala, some claim that public operators should not be too customer-oriented or provide services at an excessively high level of quality, since this will increase service use. He disagrees:
“Operational and quality-related development also improves productivity and economy. High-quality services are no more expensive than low-quality ones, but they improve people’s quality of life. This improves health care and social well-being and reduces the need for repeat visits and special services.
He believes that customer experience development also boosts work well-being and professional pride:
“When the quality of the services is high, the employees find that their work has a purpose. People enjoy their work more and take sick leave less frequently.”
Smooth cooperation and joint development
Timo Tuurala is very happy with Roidu. Over the course of 2021, a total of 15 new feedback devices will be procured.
“We are in contact almost every month in various practical matters, and the communication is always open and straightforward. Roidu has operated responsibly and sought to help us build an efficient way of collecting and reporting on customer experiences,” Tuurala says in summary.
