Environmental Health Project to Improve Customer Satisfaction Survey Return Rates

The project focused on gaining greater knowledge and understanding of the Central Michigan District Health Department’s (CMDHD’s) Environmental Health (EH) customer satisfaction with both its in-office and onsite services. Due to minimal return rates on past EH customer satisfaction surveys across the six-county area, the CMDHD quality improvement (QI) team did not know what to change to improve return rates. Using the nine-step QI process, the QI team identified potential problems (e.g., inconsistent distribution efforts across the district, survey tool, lack of written policies); identified possible solutions (e.g., develop a district-wide distribution policy with staff and administrator input and develop a new survey tool); and tested the solutions (e.g., track survey distribution and return rates).
The overall purpose of the project was to assess and improve customer satisfaction of services provided through the onsite well and septic programs. By using the nine-step Multistate Learning Collaborative (MLC-3) QI plan, the team intended to assess and improve the surveying process so that meaningful information could be gained by using the customer satisfaction surveys. Through review and revision of the survey distribution policy and the survey form itself, the team was able to gather quantitative and qualitative data to assess customer satisfaction of services specific to onsite septic and water programs. From May 2009 to February 2010, the overall survey return rate increased by more than 75%. Return rates ranged from 6.00% to 23.08% during the study period.