CDOT Readies Customer Experience Improvement Project
Dennis Van Patter, Office of Communications
January 17, 2014
A process improvement/Lean project that will begin in mid-February will likely be as far-reaching as any so far conducted in the two-year history of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Process Improvement Program.
The subject is the customer experience at CDOT, which you can think of as an examination of CDOT’s various customer service processes statewide, how they operate, and how they can be improved. That description gives you an idea of just how wide-ranging the effort will be - it will cross every region, division, and workgroup boundary.
For purposes of the project, ‘customer’ is defined as anyone who uses the Colorado transportation system maintained by CDOT and who contacts CDOT with an issue regarding the highway system. This does not include daily work-related interactions such as inquiries from one CDOT employee to another or from one division to another. Additional customer service interactions may be addressed in future phases of this project.
The nine-person team assigned to this Lean process has a big job ahead which will include determining who is responsible for handling customer inquiries, comments, and complaints, how effectively they are being handled at the present time and methods for improving CDOT customer service. The task will be even more intriguing given the fact that CDOT’s customer service processes currently have a high public approval rating as evidenced by a statewide perception survey that indicated 78% of respondents either approved or strongly approved of the job CDOT is doing on their behalf.
Amy Ford, CDOT Communications Director, and the primary project sponsor acknowledged the scope of the project. “We will look at everything: how do customers reach us? How long does it take CDOT to respond, from an initial response to a final one? How do we track all of this data and make use of it to improve?” she said. “At the other end of the process, we want to help make the customer experience at CDOT the best it can be, and we hope to streamline access to the information customers want most. Since our processes are already viewed as good, this will be an effort to see if we can make them even better.”
The Customer Experience will follow the typical Lean process steps, beginning with a Rapid Improvement Event in Denver Feb. 10-14, 2014.
What They're Saying
“I think the most important reason for this effort revolves around making sure our customers receive a prompt, courteous, and correct response each and every time they contact CDOT. The main need is to make it easier on all of us within the organization to get our customers to the right person or persons to answer inquiries.” - Sponsor Coalition member Mike Goolsby, Maintenance Superintendent, Region 3.
"I very much appreciate the support of our sponsors and the Project Team in participating in this effort. This is an important step in the effort to serve our customers even more effectively than we do now." - Gary Vansuch, CDOT's Director of Process Improvement.