Time to read: 90 seconds + as much time as you would like on the IRS wait times website
In this year’s Program Review, you have the opportunity to update your current service level statements and the data that supports them. We understand that describing current service levels for activities (and knowing what data will demonstrate them) isn’t always easy or straightforward.
What will help you craft the best service level statements?
Reframe how you think about them. Think about your service levels (whether they’re current, or minimum, or degraded, or enhanced, or recommended) as the commitment you are making to your customers. If the data you currently use to support your service level doesn’t to tell your customer what to expect, it’s probably because you’re describing what you are doing (or need to be doing) instead of what your customers are receiving from you.
What’s the difference?
We’ve all been a customer at a restaurant—
ü Customer-focused current service level statement: We will greet, seat, and feed you within 30 minutes of you walking in the door.
û Not-customer-focused current service level statement: We will have a minimum of two chefs for every shift, seven days a week.
Everyone files Federal taxes—
You may have seen the articles about how impossible it is to get through to the IRS, especially by phone. What is the commitment they are making to us, their customers? How do they define their current service level? They use our wait time: how long we have to wait for what we need. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-operations-during-covid-19-mission-critical-functions-continue. Yes, they also track and report the number of agents available to answer the phone (and sometimes an increase in their staffing levels), but that data is not the customer-focused service level; it describes what exists to support the current service level.
How do I go about reframing how I think about this?
When updating your service level statements, whether current or recommended, consider:
What does your customer care about?
What would really matter to them if you stopped it, changed it, or added to it?
What are they getting out of what you do for them? (outcomes)
How often are you doing it for them? (timeframes)
How well are you doing it? (quality)
See more Loudoun examples for your current service level statements in Tip 5—Learn from others. Also, join us on February 24 in the Workshop for People Who Plan where we can all share examples and get closer to customer-focused service level statements.
Why focus on your customers in the Program Review service level statements?
It’s all about the audience. The primary audiences for the Program Review are the Board of Supervisors and the public. What they want to see clearly from your narrative and data is the value of what you are doing for them personally and for the community, given the investments they are making. Focusing on what they care about will help you best tell that story.
Reminder: Relevant Definitions
Service levels describe what we are doing and how well we are doing it. They generally involve a promise to someone or some group to deliver something at a certain level of quality, for some benefit.
Current service levels are the level of service you are providing now, with current resources. May reset each year in the budget process.
Recommended service levels are the desired service level we would like to provide the community that is responsible and sustainable.
