Responding to the Demographics of a Community

• Navajo and Apache County Workforce Investment Board, Snowflake, AZ
• Capital Workforce Partners, CT
• Workforce Boards of Metropolitan Chicago, IL
• Rochester Workforce Development Inc., MN

Overview

Capital Workforce Partners (CWP), the Workforce Investment Board (WIB) for the greater Hartford, CT area, uses detailed point of service customer satisfaction data broken down by demographic variables to identify and resolve service problems specific to particular demographic groups that is more detailed than what would be learned from the standard survey. The data allows CWP to develop cultural competence in service design and delivery, and to ensure that all customers receive the services necessary to move them toward genuine economic self-sufficiency.

In collecting data by age race, gender, and level of education, the WIB goes beyond the general satisfaction reports required by Workforce Investment Act (WIA) regulations. The more detailed data are used to:

• Evaluate customer satisfaction for different demographic groups (age, race, gender, level of education, etc.);
• Evaluate the degree to which the demographics of their customers reflect the general composition of the region they serve; and
• Make programming and marketing decisions based on data for each demographic group.

An added benefit of this data collection has been that the CWP’s marketing has become much more focused and productive.

Capital Workforce Partners produces three reports based on the responses to the customer satisfaction survey. The three audiences are businesses, jobseekers (available on the web) and WIB leaders and staff. The customer surveys can serve as an early warning device to alert the WIB to service delivery problems.

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History

CWP’s decision to gather more detailed customer satisfaction information was triggeredcatalyzed by the demographic shifts of the local workforce. The CWP realized it could not meet its mission if it did not have reliable, detailed information on all segments of its customer base. Moreover, CWP wanted to understand the different needs of various communities to assist it,in developing services and responses tailored to various populations.

Initially, CWP noticed there were conflicting degrees of satisfaction based on customers’ level of education. Customers with secondary level education or less were satisfied, but customers with education beyond secondary were not very satisfied. This difference prompted CWP to assess its programs' ability to meet the needs of customers with higher levels of education. The CWP designed new programs for customers with higher levels of education with the result that. the customer satisfaction ratings for that demographic group went up.

Subsequent to its recrafting programs described above, CWP examined its’ customer satisfaction data for other anomalies specific to particular demographic groups and for each program it operates or funds. The data are used as an "early warning device" to flag possible problems. The information helps CWP determine what types of technical assistance providers need to meet their performance goals.

CWP now uses a more complex customer satisfaction survey modeled after the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The Index is an independent measure of household consumption experience that tracks trends in customer satisfaction and provides benchmarking insights of the consumer economy for companies, industry trade associations, and government agencies. In addition to education levels, CWP compares customer satisfaction data by age, gender, race and other relevant categories CWP may identify. In its internal program evaluation, CWP does a system-wide evaluation to determine if the demographics of its customers reflect the general composition of the region it serves. The results of the evaluation drive CWP's decisions to conduct further market research and/or to develop services to address unmet needs.

CWP produces reports based on customer satisfaction data: one for internal use for program evaluation, one for businesses, and one for jobseeker customers. Further, a series of segmented reports are produced for area businesses and economic development organizations, highlighting information relevant to these customers. The WIB also makes relevant customer satisfaction information available to jobseeker customers at one-stops and on their website.

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Partners and Funding

CWP was able to design its expanded customer satisfaction questionnaire on its own and to conduct its own statistical analysis of the data obtained from the surveys, due to an unusual set of in-house expertise. CWP notes that without such extensive staff expertise, it would have been necessary to use vendors and/or engage an academic institution as a partner to assist with these efforts.

Challenges

Awareness of cultural differences among demographic groups and developing cultural competence in service design and delivery is a complex challenge which, without more precise definition, can be very difficult to address. CWP chose to use its customer satisfaction data gathering as a way to begin quantifying how well they were doing in their task of building the future workforce.
Even with good data, stakeholders often fail to engage because information is not presented in a way that highlights their self-interest. CWP presented the analysis of its data in ways that would be immediately understandable and of interest to stakeholder groups.

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Keys to Successful Implementation

• Making continuous quality improvement and strategic planning a priority, and identifying staff to take on the job.
• Developing a data gathering tool that permits detailed analysis of customer satisfaction by demographic characteristics.
• Using an expert questionnaire designer ensuring questions are structured appropriately to obtain the desired information.
• Providing detailed feedback and technical assistance to service providers to ensure their ability to meet performance goals for all demographic groups.
• Using the data analysis to help key stakeholders understand how their interests are affected by the findings, and how the information can be used to develop solutions that will benefit them.

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Model Materials

• Expanded Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire [DOC, 32KB]

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