Project updates

Helping councils improve their consent and inspection services

Project overview:

- Introduction

Details of each study:

- Study 1:
Building Consent and Inspection Services

- Study 2:
Resource Consent
Process

- Project updates

During the study this page is updated to report progress and news about the project.

Current status:

Actioning findings from 2009 and registering for the 2010 studies
The 2009 studies are now complete and participating councils have received their council-specific reports and management briefings. They are currently using these findings to set improvement priorities and plan remedial actions.

A case study summarising industry-wide findings from the 2009 Building Consent and Inspection Services studies is now available from CTMA. Please contact us via our "contact" page to request a copy.

For councils wishing to take part in one or both of the 2010 studies, please register as soon as possible. Simply select the study from the menu on the left and then click on the registration button to reach the registration page.

Customer invitations:

Please remember, councils and other professional bodies involved in the building industry may invite their customers to take part in the on-line part of the study for no fee.

Questions and answers:

Can we get a copy of the report later - even if we don't take part now?
The value of the study, particularly at the council-specific level, is greatly influenced by the volume of customer responses. The role of each participating council, encouraging this response amongst its own customers, is a key contribution to the overall success of the study and is reflected in the report fees. In fairness to those councils that are actively participating, reports will not be available to non-participants.

Do we have to send out the paper-based questionnaires, or can we simply ask our customers to respond on-line?
During the past three years we have found that where customers were given a choice, nearly 95% chose to respond using the printed questionnaire, even though all printed questionnaires included clear directions as to how they could have responded on-line.

For councils where the principal method of contacting building consent customers is via mail, we recommend you use the paper-based questionnaire option
For councils where the principal method of contacting building consent customers is via email, an email inviting them to take part in the study, containing a link to the on-line questionnaire may be sufficient
For building companies, developers and other professional bodies involved in the building industry, wishing to encourage their members, customers and associates to take part, we recommend that you send them an email containing a link to the on-line questionnaire

We are about to do a major review of our building consent process. Wouldn't it be better if we took part in this study another time?
For you, there is no better time to do this study. It is specifically designed to help identify and prioritise the things that most need improvement. If you are about to undertake a process review this study will help provide your project with focus, justification and valuable customer-driven insight.

Additional background

Annual customer experience baseline studies:

In 2007, CTMA conducted a set of three customer experience studies for local councils to establish a national baseline of customer satisfaction with building consent and inspection services and the resource consent process.

It was the first time such a comprehensive nationwide study had been conducted in New Zealand. By setting council-specific improvement priorities, the studies help councils identify where they can best focus their limited resources to address issues that have the greatest impact on strategic outcomes and customer satisfaction.

Ongoing tracking programmes – Managing ongoing service-quality:

Following the 2007 baseline study, CTMA developed an ongoing satisfaction-tracking programme that serves as a management tool to help individual councils manage the service-quality of their building consent processes.

The programme consists of a short one-page questionnaire that is sent to customers as soon as their building consent has been issued. For each council, depending on response volume, the programme can report monthly or quarterly to the level of individual consent types and building consent officers. Council management can then identify strengths and improvement opportunities for individual members of staff and identify opportunities to improve service and address issues with specific consent types.