| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The implementation of the project throughout all the units of the municipality has been accepted by the major. A presentation has been made to the major and deputy major and directors about the steps to be taken throughout the process of the implementation of the project, what is to be done and the benefits that the project shall provide to the institution.
An official letter has been sent to all departments. They were requested to submit a definition of the works performed in their departments and state that has done which works in which period of time and the documents used for the works that they have performed. All this information, which has been collected, has then formed the basis of our software.
Both the project coordinator and the software specialist have visited all the departments one by one and have informed the department staff about the SSS to be established. Views and proposals of the personnel have been taken into consideration regarding the performance of the works. This made it possible to set forth the most updated work plan. Awareness has been created about the Super Service System within the body of the municipality before the introduction of the system, in this way.
A very careful study has been made to select the personnel who will be the addressee of the citizens and use the Super Service System which has been set up for the purpose of creating a service satisfaction of the citizens and ensuring a high level of performance of the personnel.
Firstly the committee, which is to select the personnel, has been set up: The committee has been formed with the participation of personal development specialist, psychologist, Project founder and project coordinator.
The project owner and the project coordinator have made selection by making face-to-face talks with the candidates. The final round has participated in a meeting in which all members of the committee attended.
The selected candidates were first subjected to training on the software of SSS and were separated into groups of two individuals and worked in all the departments within the framework of a pre-determined plan. They underwent training and learned their job not on the table but in site. They have been informed about the manner in which the works were being carried out in the departments. In short they learned technical and the public language.
While training activities continued in the departments one official from each department made a presentation about their department to the super service team. They confirmed the new information and completed the missing information.
At the same time they received training on personal development in the subjects listed below:
- Relations with the citizens
- Corporate culture
- Communication by phone
- Diction and correct use of Turkish
- Trained on sign language
- Ability to cope with difficult people
- Management of customer experience
- Ability to develop positive feelings in business life
- Know the rules of courtesy and manners
- Ability to set up an effective team
- Quality management of the whole
- Professional intelligence & professional behaviour
The team which will use SSS and the team which shall investigate the satisfaction of citizens with this service have started working.
Following the completion of the requests and the entrance of the data into the system by the quality control team which furnished feedback to the citizen the reports on the super service began to be obtained. Reports related to the departments were regularly sent to them every month. The performance of the personnel began to be instantly measured by means of the
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The biggest contribution to the implementation was the employees, citizens, private sector and other public establishments.
The employees have reviewed the works and facilitated the functioning of the system to the benefit of the citizen in accordance with the purpose of the system. They changed the work-flow schemas according to the incoming reports.
The basic stakeholder of the SSS is the citizen since the results obtained from inquiries on satisfaction and the rates in the demands serve as data that determine the investment and business planning of the municipality in the future. Besides new communication channels have been added to SSS according to the demands from the citizens.
The software specialists from private sector have established a new system in public sector software in conjunction with the SSS. They developed the software by blending the proposals both from the citizens and the employees with their own ideas.
We have established a common communication platform with other public establishments in an electronic environment thanks to the SSS. We have made mutual talks with the metropolitan municipality, district municipalities, natural gas administration and water Works administration for entering the requests related to our institution into the SSS. In this way we received the requests of other institutions from our municipality and mutually forwarded them to one another.
Thanks to the easiness of submitting requests to the SSS the relationships of the municipality with the non-governmental organizations have been strengthened.
We have followed up the developments in the private sector before establishing the SSS. Private sector companies have sent trainees to our municipality after establishment SSS. Private companies which provided call center services have measured the service quality of the super service team and we received training on communication from them. We received awards in the call center competitions organized among private companies.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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PHYSICAL SPACE
A modification has been made in the site where the citizens are first welcome in the institution. This site has been designed at the standards of the lobby of a five star hotel in order to let the citizens enter our institution in a spacious atmosphere. Hot and cold tea and coffee service has been provided. Care was taken for all kinds of details. For examples the tables were designed not with corners but in a round form and soft colours have been used etc. Approximately 6.000 TL
TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Touch-operated and two-sided screens were bought in order to offer the best and speediest service to the citizen. This enabled the citizens both to follow-up all the steps during the transaction and pay their taxes by entering their own ciphers and they were included in the system in this way. Approximately 15.000 TL
IP telephone has been preferred. Telephones which had many features such as recording all phone talks, the appearance of the name of the calling person etc. have been preferred. The earlaps which are sensitive to voices in the environment have been bought in order to let the employees to work and provide service more effectively. Approximately 6.000 TL
200.000 TL has been spent for the software which ensures the joint operation of the software with the other units, communication channels and telephone system in the municipality.
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN RESOURCE
The team have been selected among individuals who like communication, are able to express themselves properly and have the necessary knowledge and are endowed with the necessary skills.
The team have worked in all the departments in the municipalities for a period of 5-6 weeks before starting to work in their jobs. They worked for 1 to 4 working days in each department depending on the intensity of Works in the relevant department. They examined the services provided by each department in site. They took training in the departments. They received their salaries before starting to work in the super service unit and throughout the compliance program that has lasted for two months. The gross cost of an official of super service for the municipality has been 2.500 TL
They participated in many technical and personal development courses in order to provide the best service to the citizens. They also participated courses on the hearing impaired, consumer rights, municipal laws and regulations etc. 20.000 TL have been spent for the beginning courses.
The team wear uniforms after they have started working. They are given new clothes two times a year. The annual expense of a super service official for uniforms and shoes is 1.000 TL.
We bought service from an establishment which trains the call centers in order to measure the quality of speaking of the super service officials. That establishment calls us under the disguise of a secret client and measures our quality of service. We annually pay 6.000 TL
Our cost items listed above are covered by the budget of the municipality.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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A) Management of the services from a single point
Before the SSS the citizens had to go from one unit to another within the institution. Work management system was different in each unit.It was impossible to provide equal and timely service to everybody due to personal initiatives. SSS provided to everybody in the same way and at the same level irrespective of the socio – economic situations of the individuals.
B) Increase of the Means of Access to the Municipalities
Everybody had access to the municipality by using the means of communication that he has chosen personally. This has facilitated the means of access to the municipality and also led to the increase of the requests from the citizens. Apart from their demands the citizens also begin to submit their proposals, thanks and admirations easily. The relationship of “institution /citizen” has turned into a relationship of “citizen fan/friend. Subject headings like the most liked municipality /major began to be opened through the social media.
C) Transparency and the form of work based on time.
All services provided within the body of the municipality have been defined in terms of by which department /personnel are the services provided, the period of time required for the completion of the services, how the services are provided and which documents are used for that purpose. Such reasons as the reporting the requests which have been fulfilled in a period of time longer that the defined period of time as the delayed work and the acceptance of that delay as an indicator of personal performance and review of the reports both by the citizen and the top management have ensured that the employees perform the works more carefully and rapidly. Feedback has strengthened the team coordination.
D) Feedback
As soon as the citizen submits its request to the municipality he shall be informed about when the request shall be finalized and about the relevant processes. Training of the SS Team about the entire functioning of the municipality and their being capable of answering all the questions that may be asked by the citizens has led to the increase in the confidence that the citizens have for the institution.
E) Instant Reporting
Thanks to the system we may instantly see which personnel deals with which works Such a measure facilitates the instant follow-up of the works and ensures a sound measurement of the performance of the personnel.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The software of SSS automatically sends reports to the managers every day. The following information on his screen: number of delayed requests, who is responsible for that delay, the deadline of the request, the results of the surveys on satisfaction, etc.
The personnel has behaved more carefully regarding the information which he must enter in the system when he is handling the request thanks to the instant reporting and the transparent structure of the SSS. Cooperation has increased and been accelerated both within the directorate and among the directorates. As a result of the increase of the means of access to the municipality, follow-up of the requests on behalf of the citizens and supplying information of the citizens about every phase, the number of demands submitted to the SSS which was 22.998 in the year 2011 has been doubled in the year 2012 and rose to 45.202. The number of requests that we have received as of September 1, 2013 has been 45.595.
Feedbacks submitted following each request as well as the information obtained as a result of the satisfaction survey of the applicants form the basis of the system report and direct our service quality.
The call center of the SSS participates in the quality league, which is run by the establishment mentioned above and in which call centers compete each other in terms of their service quality. Every month we compete with the foreign/ local call centers which are members of the quality league, have hundreds of seats and active in Turkey. Our service quality score was 77,51 % in February when we had become member of the quality league and increased to 91,23 % in August, 2013.
The training of the human resources according to the requirements of the job, letting them gain experience in the work environment and the organizations for motivation made during the working hours has increased our personnel efficiency.
Our success has been facilitated by the fact that we have software which has been designed taking into consideration the requirements of our work and is possible to be updated according to the technological developments and innovations.
We have achieved these results thanks to the dedicated efforts of the founder of the SSS, Mr. Salih Uzun who coordinated all the positive developments described above by adding his experiences in the public sector and managed all the related activities with the sensitivity of a maestro.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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Managers resisted against SSS because they had thought that they would not be able to do their duties, that their personal initiatives would disappear and that their relationship with the citizens would be cut off.
The employees had thought that the super service team could not dominate the functioning of all the departments in the municipality and that super service system could not take the record of the whole system.
They further thought that it was impossible for the super service team to call the citizens for providing feedback about every request that has been submitted by them and perceived the calls which were made for securing quality as a form of interrogating the personnel. All these prejudgements naturally led to exhibiting a negative attitude against the new team. They claimed that such a transparent system could not function and that the officials of the municipality would fall into a difficult situation against the citizens.
The employees was further annoyed by the fact that the correspondence made by the personnel, who is in charge of entering the requests in the SSS by means of the software of the system, with the personnel members of the department during the handling of the request would be seen by the major and the citizen who had submitted the request.
The ability of the system to report on the performance of the department personnel instantly and the ability of the top management to see these reports instantly has given rise to an uneasiness of the personnel members.
The principle of transparency, i.e. the ability of the personnel, citizens and top management to see all the details related to the request, which was criticized at most at the beginning, later became the most liked aspect of the SSS because the personnel began behaving more carefully regarding the performance of their duties and knowledge sharing in a platform which is open to everybody. It became easier to carry out the activities and formalities. Team work has been strengthened.
Thanks to the SS reports it became possible for the department heads to report all kinds of works and activities carried out in their departments and submit those reports to the top management. The habits prevailing in the institution have changed and the functioning of the whole institution has been accelerated thanks to the fact that the operation of the system was compulsorily based on time and feedback.
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