City department lets residents grade its work
Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Make a mess, clean it up - that's the philosophy behind Fayetteville's new water and wastewater report card.
"We want to find out how we're doing. We want our customers to tell us," said David Jurgens, water and wastewater director. "This is feedback after the fact."
The first of the new orange cards will go on doors in early May.
"Over the years, we have continuously tried to get better at communicating with customers and cleaning up our messes because that's what they remember," Jurgens said. "Cleaning up the mess is really all the customer sees of what we do, almost every time. "
City crews in Jurgens'department dig holes, lots of them for lots of reasons: from fixing reduced water pressure because of leaking water lines to tree roots causing sewer backups.
Jurgens estimated they dig about 10 holes a day.
"When you think about it, it's in their yard or in their street, so our customers inherently can become unhappy with us," he said.
The new philosophy is a change from 20 years ago.
A 1988 memo explains in answer to a customer's complaint," We only make sure that the area does not settle, is free of rocks, and has a reasonable amount of good soil on the area. We do not apply seed, straw, or sod as that is the responsibility of the property owner if they wish to do so. "
By contrast, in 2008, customers receive phone calls, letters and pre-notification door hangars for non-emergency situations. They are told what work is being done and why. If it is an extensive project, the letter will explain how long the work is expected to take, if crews will be working weekends and about street closures.
Cleanup now includes planting grass and relaying sod. The object is to get the disturbed ground back to its condition before the hole was dug.
"We do our best to restore to original condition or better," Jurgens said.
At one time, the Water and Wastewater Division tried growing sod, but that didn't work. Now if the job calls for sod, the city orders and pays for it.
The report cards are to see if customers "are satisfied with what we left behind," Jurgens said.
The door hangar cards will be perforated with a return address on the reverse side. Besides being asked to indicate if the work met, did not meet or exceeded expectations, customers have space for comments and a place to indicate a request for a callback.
The report cards also should aid in accountability and evaluation of crews, Jurgens said.
"Our goal is perfection," he said. "This is taking us to a much higher level. This is going to help us find out how we're doing."
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