Customer feedback - striving towards a sustainable public service

Increasingly the importance of satisfying customers obtaining a sustainable service, has been put in focus even within public organizations. This paper will focus on the road transport context, i.e. Public Transport and Swedish Road Administration. We will discuss and put in front the fact that most public organizations are skilled in collecting customer feedback upon the service but lack policies on how to use the information or how to categorize and change the service in accordance with the customer expectations. Additionally, most public organization based on their appropriation directions, perform a service that aims towards being sustainable, i.e. having balance between the triple bottom line interests: economic, environmental and social Public service organizations, however, tends to be stuck in an transactional cost focus of the service which causes a triple bottom line imbalance which suppress issues that are difficult to measure, in this case mainly the social concerns of the service. Supported by Garwin 1988, Kasper et al. 1999 and Schneider and White 2004 we believe that the soft, social elements of the service, where the customer perceptions of it mainly occur, are difficult to adapt to and therefore also difficult to effectuate. We do not argue that it is necessary to abandon economical interests but rather to broaden the view and find means to rebalance the service so that it becomes a more natural part of the service to support all three interests of the triple bottom line view (A). For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E212343.

• Authors:
  • CAMEN, C
  • JOHNSON, M
• Publication Date: 2006

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 8p
• Serial:
  • TRA - TRANSPORT RESEARCH ARENA EUROPE 2006: GOETEBORG, SWEDEN, JUNE 12TH-15TH 2006: GREENER, SAFER AND SMARTER ROAD TRANSPORT FOR EUROPE. PROCEEDINGS
  • Publisher: Swedish Road Administration

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communication; Communications; Conferences; Districts and authorities; Federal government; Management; Organizations; Policy; Public participation; Transportation departments
• Geographic Terms: Sweden
• ITRD Terms: 155: Administration; 9098: Communication; 8525: Conference; 183: Government (national); 9057: Organization (association); 173: Policy; 142: Public participation; 8109: Sweden; 253: Transport authority
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Policy; Society; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01102528
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: TRL
• Files: ITRD
• Created Date: Jun 16 2008 7:53AM