Customer Service, Partnership, Leadership: Three Strategies That Work

This article, which appeared in the GAO Journal, No. 11, Winter 1990/91, discusses state and local government experiences in solving service delivery problems, focusing on methods that managers used to increase productivity and customer satisfaction, including: (1) building partnerships with external customers; (2) allowing managers to experiment with new ways to conduct business; (3) instilling strong organizational values; (4) establishing partnerships that allow organizations to learn about new perspectives, insights, skills, and resources without increasing organizational size; (5) giving employees the authority to make significant case-by-case decisions; and (6) recognizing uniform rules that could excessively inhibit flexibility.