Service orientation of Dutch municipalities

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Service orientation of municipalities
Of course, despite the government's monopoly, there are also circumstances in which you as a citizen do have a choice. For example, when you are moving and have the freedom to decide for yourself in which municipality you will settle.

With this situation as a starting point, one of us, Basile Lemaire, recently conducted his research ' Benchmark service orientation Dutch municipalities ' (pdf, 2012). By e-mail and, where appropriate, via a web form, he sent a request for information to every municipality in the Netherlands as a mystery shopper regarding available plots, permits, municipal charges and family-friendly neighbourhoods. Based on 18 criteria in the area of ​​accessibility, information provision and service provision, a score was assigned to all responses from the municipalities.



The average score was 5.5 (out of 10). Especially in the area of ​​service provision, relatively low scores were obtained. No less than 91 of the 415 municipalities (22%) did not respond, not substantively or not within a month.

Communicating via social media: loss of control?
Judging from these results, municipalities appear to have their service provision via e-mail insufficiently in order in many cases. From the responses of municipalities that were dissatisfied with the results of the research, it can be concluded that an important reason for this lies in the attitude that prevails within some municipalities. This appears to be sri lanka phone data mainly 'inwardly' focused: people often think in terms of procedures instead of putting themselves in the shoes of the citizen.

The question is whether it is wise to start with social media with such an attitude. Social media require a strongly outward-looking attitude. Moreover, where e-mail is still a matter of single communication (two parties correspond exclusively with each other), social media involves multiple communication. Tweets and Facebook posts can be read by everyone and in many cases everyone can respond to them. Municipalities may experience this multiple communication as threatening. Although this form of communication offers advantages (such as saving time, because a question is submitted to several people at the same time), inward-looking municipalities mainly experience communication via social media as the loss of some of their control.