User-friendly electronic survey to enhance civic services

Hussain Nasser Lootah, Acting Director General of the Municipality, said the initiative titled "My View Counts" would be undertaken fully online and would give fast and real-time results, together with charts and graphs that will keep changing according to the various participations over the months. Though the survey is done online, the public would be educated about it via other forms of mass media mainly newspaper advertisements.

"We are fully convinced of the importance of our customers' participation in the process of taking decisions for the purpose of providing enhanced services. We hope this initiative will contribute towards realizing our customer-related values that speak of a commitment to partnership and understanding of their needs and expectations," said Mr. Lootah.

He noted that the public can participate in the survey by visiting the municipality's website: www.dm.gov.ae and clicking the channel "My View Counts," which will take them to a webpage where a series of questionnaires has been uploaded. Each visitor can choose the questionnaires related to the services he or she prefers and respond to the survey questions in a matter of 10 or 15 minutes. The survey forms have been designed in a user-friendly and an interactive format and the respondent has to only pick up one of the several options that have been given under most of the questions. At the end of the survey, they can submit creative suggestions to enhance the services and, if they so wish, can leave their names and contact details for further researches and studies by the Municipality.

"We highly rate the views of our customers and consider them as crucial input in our quest for the highest levels of excellence and distinction," said Lootah.

With regard to the confidentiality of the survey's respondents, Muna Obaid Al Dabbah, Head of Customer Care Section, said Dubai Municipality has adopted a customer privacy policy to protect customers' rights of having his or her information confidential. Having such a policy will maximize the quality of feedback and ensure a transparent and honest communication between customers and the municipality. All of the information the customers provide will be used for market research purposes only.

About the research methodology, she explained that as soon as the customer participates by filling the questionnaire, all the data will be fed into the electronic system of a neutral company (Zarca Interactive). This will automatically be followed by an issuing of results, together with the charts that will keep changing according to the various participations over the months.

Listing the initiative's advantages, she said in comparison to the traditional methods, the Electronic Questionnaire technology is less expensive. Besides, this system is exceedingly faster than the traditional ones in both securing analysis and obtaining results. The stage of feeding information, which is an essential phase within the traditional methods of market research, does not exist when employing Electronic Questionnaire technology. This results in reducing cost, effort and number of mistakes.

The press conference was also attended by assistants of the director general for different sectors, and Maryam Al Hammadi, Assistant Director of the Administrative Development and Quality Department & Head of the Performance Management Section.