PROVIDENCE – The Department of Environmental Management has developed a series of online customer satisfaction surveys to assess the level of service the Department is providing environmental permit applicants and the general public. The feedback generated by the surveys will help DEM identify areas where services can be improved to better serve the public.
Eight customer satisfaction surveys relating to various permitting programs and the DEM web site are now available online on DEM’s homepage, www.dem.ri.gov . Participation is voluntary, and the surveys can be completed anonymously. The surveys each take about five minutes to complete, and are offered for the following DEM permits and applications:
• Air permitting process
• Agriculture pesticide permitting process
• Office of Technical & Customer Assistance
• Septic System (ISDS) permitting process
• Wetlands applications
• Waste Management Program permitting process
• Water Program permitting process
• Website
“We’re interested in getting customer feedback on our various permitting programs and are looking for honest answers so that we can use this information constructively to make any needed improvements,” said DEM Director W. Michael Sullivan, Ph.D. “Customer service is very important to DEM, and we’re always looking for ways to improve the quality of our programs and make our information and services more accessible to the citizens and businesses of Rhode Island.”
Survey participants are instructed to mark a box or type in text that best describes their customer service experience with a particular DEM program. Most of the questions rate DEM’s performance by asking participants whether a particular service exceeded expectations, met expectations, or did not meet expectations.
The online customer service survey project was created without taxpayer expense by DEM in collaboration with RI.gov, the state’s official web site provider, as part of a zero-dollar partnership between the State of Rhode Island and New England Interactive. RI.gov General Manager Tom Viall said, “DEM has spearheaded the effort to collect user opinion via the Internet and it has been very exciting to see this work come to fruition. Since we started developing these online surveys, we have received similar requests from other state agencies, and we look forward to expanding the application in the future to meet these needs.”