Meeting Customer Needs

Petya Atsinova

Executive Director

Stara Zagora Regional Economic Development Agency

No. 8/2000

In June, 2000, the Stara Zagora Regional Economic Development Agency hosted the final meeting on a project entitled Development of a program to respond to service customers need as a basis for the improvement of the social and economic environment . The project was funded by the Foundation for Local Government Reform with USAID support.

Apart from project participants, the meeting was also attended by other parties interested in the issues related to the quality of service delivery: business representatives; NGOs; labor bureaus; regional and municipal social centers.

The goals pursued by the Regional Economic Development Agency in the implementation of the project were:

to initiate the process of having local and national institutions administrations become responsive to citizens needs;

to change the treatment of private companies clients, in order to create a new image of local business.

The Municipality of Stara Zagora, the Labor Bureau, the Territorial Tax Directorate, FLAG Consortium and USAID s Local Government Initiative Program all participated in project implementation. The project was aimed at adopting a comprehensive approach to the issue that would be used not only by municipal and national organizations but by businesses as well. For the first time, there was an effort to develop a complete public and business environment, open to the citizens and friendly to the customers.

The Municipality of Stara had already made a step in this direction by establishing a citizen information center. However, the studies showed that in general:

customer service is non-existent;

there is no service delivery control system;

management staff are not motivated to improve service delivey;

there is no customer feedback; where there is, it s incidental and is not used to improve operations;

there is no comprehensive overall approach to the issues and there is no vision on its importance in local economy development and in attracting guests and investors;

there are no efforts to motivate staff to improve customer service.

The analysis of the surveys among citizens and foreign visitors (both tourists and business representatives), as well as the pilot seminars facilitated by a FLAG consultant, the purchased educational materials and video tapes, laid the foundations for the next step of project implementation. The video tape included materials that were dubbed in Bulgarian and could be used for follow-up trainings.

LGI consultants provided assistance in the development of materials and training of trainers on general customer service issues. The trainers also acquired knowledge on how to apply a differentiated approach to different groups of trainees, depending on the their specific activities and clients.

Trainings were also organized for the staff of the Territorial Tax Directorate, the Social Center, the Municipality of Stara Zagora, the Labor Bureau, SOD, as well as for representatives of commercial companies, banks and hotels. The Territorial Tax Directorate s management were especially pro-active; evidently, they realized the extent of their customer service problems and the need to find solutions.

As a pleasant surprise came the request on behalf of the Zahari Knyazhevski Library to provide training for their staff, despite the fact that the project had ended and they had to pay for the training. The Agency s team was glad that it was able to provide free training to the librarians among which were also representatives of the libraries at the Rodina and Georgi Bakalov community centers.

A radio program on customer service issues was developed and broadcasted and a special brochure was published.

There are many shops, workshops, hotels, municipal and national institutions where the staff know the secrets of good service. Those who know how to satisfy customer needs will be awarded a prize with citizens assistance. We have The Secrets of Good Service are Known Here stickers that would be posted on the doors of places where the citizens gladly go as they know that they ll get nice reception and good service. The Stara Zagora citizens can give their suggestions to the Regional Economic Development Agency by phone. The list will be published in The National Business Post in September.

The activities implemented under the project were presented at the final meeting. The presentation initiated a frank discussion on the bad quality of service delivery in the public and the private sector and on how important meeting customers needs is to any business or institution.

The final results from the two surveys, conducted in November, 1999, and the spring of 2000, were also presented at the final meeting. The results could be used by the management of companies and institutions to make informed decisions with regard to human resources.

The project proved the necessity of seeking opportunities for a wider discussion of the issue and of developing a program on making Stara Zagora a city responsive to the needs of its citizens and visitors.

The implementation of the project was the first step of a long way. The Agency is challenging local governments, national organizations and local business to walk that way, in order to make Stara Zagora a better place to live, visit or do business.