Today, more than ever, resident satisfaction is doing more than impacting the overall well-being of our communities — it’s practically shaping it in real-time. Even the most seasoned municipal leaders can find that facilitating effective community engagement is a demanding juggling act of time, attention, and resources. But it’s worth the effort. When residents feel involved, heard, and valued by their local government, they’re more likely to participate in community projects actively, support local initiatives, and contribute to their municipality's growth.
Building Department Services — including permitting, inspections, and code enforcement — significantly impact residents' daily lives and their perception of local government. By putting in the effort to prioritize community engagement while improving the efficiency, transparency, and accessibility of your Building Department Services, you can significantly boost resident satisfaction today and for the long term. In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of creating a stronger sense of trust, collaboration, and satisfaction between your team and your community.
Understanding the significance of Building Department Services
Building Department Services quite literally shape residents' daily lives. From issuing permits for home renovations to ensuring new construction projects are up-to-code, they directly impact the quality of life, safety, and economic growth at every level of your municipality.
Even if community members don’t know exactly what Building Department Services are by name, they are keenly aware of the impacts of how well or poorly they are being impacted by them. When residents can easily navigate the permitting process, receive timely inspections, and obtain quality customer service from municipal staff, it has a positive impact on their attitudes toward their local government.
Easier said than done? Not necessarily. Streamlined processes and responsive customer service are two areas that any department can improve upon, even in small ways, to demonstrate that you value residents' time and are committed to supporting their needs. Even if you don’t get a bunch of glowing reviews or positive feedback right away, by prioritizing the connection between your department and your community, you’re likely to find the number of unhappy community members is dramatically reduced.
Fostering open communication channels
Making the switch from monologue mode (talking at) to dialogue mode (talking with) your community, although challenging, ensures that residents feel heard and valued by your building department.
But how do you really create opportunities for open, productive, two-way communication? Consider the following strategies:
- Establish user-friendly platforms, such as online portals, mobile apps, or dedicated email addresses that invite residents to easily voice concerns, ask questions, and provide feedback.
- Host regular public meetings or town halls where residents can connect directly with experts and officials on project updates, address concerns, and gather input.
- Respond promptly and thoughtfully to feedback, thereby demonstrating that resident opinions matter and that your team is committed to addressing their needs.
These open communication strategies, combined with incorporating the feedback into your decision-making processes whenever possible, show that you not only talk the talk but walk the walk. That’s active listening in action, and it builds trust, increases transparency, and shows your commitment to serving the community.
Promoting transparency and accessibility
When it comes to building strong, healthy relationships with your community, transparency and accessibility are crucial. The clearer and more accessible your information and staff are, the more engaged and valued your community will feel. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true.
Good transparency and accessibility start in your department at the process level: Are your processes and procedures easy to understand? If not, it might be worthwhile to examine them from the general public’s point of view. This is NOT the place for “inside baseball.” Use plain language and avoid technical jargon wherever possible, particularly when outlining the steps involved in processes that can be unnecessarily confusing or frustrating, like obtaining permits or scheduling inspections.
Another aspect of this is providing clear and timely updates on building projects and municipal initiatives, such as progress reports, notifications of potential impacts (e.g., road closures or construction noise), and announcements of key milestones or completed projects. Your website, newsletters, and social media are great tools for disseminating information, but the direction of communication in these mediums tends to be one-way (with the exception of social media, provided it is well-maintained). Public forums or town hall meetings, on the other hand, provide an excellent platform for two-way communication. At these events, your team can discuss a wide range of topics and updates in person, while addressing community reactions, concerns, and feedback in real-time.
Every step your team takes to be more transparent and accessible clears the way for your community to take steps toward you as a trusted advocate for their best interests. That means more satisfied residents.
Engaging the community in decision-making processes
As nerve-wracking as it can initially feel, involving your community in the early stages of planning and decision-making for building projects is a unique opportunity. Resident involvement in the fledgling stages of projects increases not only community engagement but a shared sense of ownership and pride in the project and partnership with your team. But, given the important differences between your residents and the experts involved in a given project, it’s critical to take a measured, strategic approach to how you engage your community and to what degree.
More efficient than soliciting broad feedback from the community at large, citizen advisory committees or focus groups can help gather diverse perspectives from within the community in an organized, manageable, and effective way. By creating and facilitating these groups, your team can establish a clear line of sight into your community's unique needs, preferences, and concerns related to specific projects or topics. And, as an added benefit, those involved in these groups often experience — and demonstrate — a heightened sense of community pride and engagement over the course of the project.
Actively listening to and incorporating this feedback can ensure that your projects align with the community's vision and values. These groups often offer perspectives, insights, opinions, and sometimes even innovations, not yet considered by the project team that will improve your project exponentially. Even strange, controversial, and “bad” ideas or clashing opinions can help clarify what’s most important for your project or strategy.
Leveraging technology for efficient service delivery
We all know by now that technology alone isn’t enough to solve all our problems. In fact, the wrong technology can create a whole mess of new challenges we were better off without.
However, the right technology, in the right hands, for the right reasons, can truly be a game-changer for building departments set on improving resident satisfaction. This is especially true for executing:
- Increased efficiency and productivity within your building department, leading to quicker turnaround times and reduced backlogs.
- Enhanced accessibility for residents, who can access services and information at their convenience without the need for in-person visits.
- Improved transparency, as residents can easily track the status of their applications and stay informed throughout the process.
- Cost savings for both your municipality and residents thanks to reduced paper usage, reduced travel costs, and optimized staff time.
Technology specifically developed for building departments takes resident satisfaction even further. User-friendly online permitting systems and self-service portals allow residents to submit permit applications, track progress, and access information 24/7. At the same time, they significantly improve your efficiency and productivity by streamlining the permitting process, reducing paperwork, and enabling faster application reviews.
Mobile applications and virtual inspections enhance convenience for residents and your team alike. Mobile apps allow residents to schedule inspections, view results, and communicate with inspectors directly from their smartphones, while Remote Video Inspections (RVI) minimize the need for disruptive on-site visits, free up your senior staff for more complex projects, and breakthrough your backlogs more quickly.
Cultivating partnerships and collaborations
Building strong partnerships and collaborating with local organizations, businesses, and community groups is another vital strategy for building community engagement and resident satisfaction. These partnerships provide different perspectives, insights, and advantages than those provided by individual residents.
For example, partnering with a local housing advocacy group can help identify challenges faced by residents in accessing affordable housing or navigating the permitting process; while partnering with a local sustainable technology company could influence how a project is powered or located.
Intentional collaborations like these open doors for joint programs that directly keep your team and your community working together in partnership. Educational workshops and volunteer events are also good ways to show your commitment to and prioritization of the members of the community you serve. Furthermore, these engagements can provide valuable information and resources to residents and foster a sense of shared responsibility.
Step into greater resident satisfaction
As with any ambitious initiative or process to create lasting change, it begins with a small, manageable step. Ideally, that step delivers results you can not only measure but feel. As you fold the strategies above into your own, there are a number of tools you can implement into your current processes that can help you improve community engagement and satisfaction immediately.
One powerful tool to consider is electronic permitting, which can greatly improve efficiency, transparency, and accessibility for your community. It may be your first, third, or fifth step, but all of them add up to a journey of commitment to long-term resident satisfaction and community engagement across your entire municipality.
Contact us, and let us bring your vision to life.
