City doing largest survey ever

his week, New York City began the largest municipal services survey ever conducted in the U.S. The survey, which will be sent to more than 100,000 randomly selected city households, is the result of the recently established Customer Service Group in the city’s Office of Operations.
Residents spread out across all 59 community boards in the five boroughs will first receive a notification in the mail informing them that they have been selected for participation. Recipients of the notification will have the option of requesting the survey in English, Chinese, Russian or Spanish.
“This is a groundbreaking project that will result in both a broad collection and deep analysis of information about the effectiveness of municipal government,” Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said in a statement. “It will allow city government to better understand how best to serve the people of this city,” she said.
The objective of the survey is to identify strengths and weaknesses in city service delivery. Among other things, the survey will ask participants to rate services and “quality of life issues” such as cleanliness, pedestrian safety, graffiti and recycling in their community. Participants will also be asked to rate city agencies they have recently dealt with.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who announced the customer service survey along with Gotbaum, is hopeful that the results of the comprehensive review will help him improve city life.
“During my career in business and my time as mayor, I’ve learned that the more information any enterprise has the more successful it can be at managing its resources, fixing problems, and serving its customers,” he said in the statement.
Survey packets include instructions and upon completion can be submitted online or by mail in a pre-paid envelope. All information will be kept confidential, as it will be sent to a third party contractor and withheld from the public and the city.