Citizen Satisfaction

How satisfied are your citizens with municipal government performance and services?

Citizen satisfaction surveys are one of the most effective tools local governments have for understanding citizens’ satisfaction levels, needs, concerns, and priorities. These surveys provide a scientific form of public consultation that ensures municipalities hear from the entire public rather than just a vocal minority. In addition to assessing the overall pulse and mood of the community, these surveys can also be used to help make strategic decisions around long-term planning, priority setting, budgeting, and issues management.

Ipsos Reid’s Citizen Satisfaction syndicated research study examines your citizens’ perceptions of their community and municipal government performance and then puts these into context by comparing them to those seen in other Canadian municipalities.

Survey Topics

Key topics covered in the Citizen Satisfaction syndicated study include:

Top-of-mind local issues;
Quality of life;
Perceptions of staff and Council;
Satisfaction with municipal services;
Perceived value for taxes and preferred funding options; and,
Communication and information needs.

In addition to the topics listed above, this year’s survey will also include two optional modules that target key areas of concern:

Customer Service: What percentage of citizens have contacted their local municipality in the last 12 months? Why are citizens contacting their municipality? What communication channels are citizens using for this contact? How satisfied are citizens with the customer service they receive during these interactions?
Community Safety: What do citizens see as the biggest crime and personal safety issues facing their community? How safe do citizens feel in their community? How have perceptions of safety changed over the past five years?

Normative Comparisons

In addition to looking at your overall results, Ipsos Reid believes that one of the best ways to understand how well your municipality is performing is to compare your results to those of other Canadian municipalities. As part of the final deliverables for participating in this syndicated research study, Ipsos Reid will compare your municipality’s results to our database of municipal norms for key questions. This will provide valuable context, added insight, greater depth of analysis, and benchmarks against which to evaluate your performance.

Research Methodology

A syndicated study is to research what a car pool is to commuters – it’s a shared vehicle with shared costs. In a syndicated study, subscribers share the cost of data collection for the set of core questions. Thus, the report cost is only a fraction of what it would have been if a custom study had been done just for you.

For Ipsos Reid’s Citizen Satisfaction syndicated research study, we will conduct a telephone survey of 300 citizens aged 18 years or older in each municipality that decides to participate in the research. This will provide overall results that are accurate to within ±5.7% (19 times out of 20) and will also allow for analysis by key demographic subgroups such as age, gender, etc.

To keep the costs low, the same core questions (topics outlined above) will be asked in all municipalities. However, there is also an opportunity to add custom questions or increase the number of interviews for an additional charge.

Your municipality’s individual results will not be shared with other municipalities, although the results will be incorporated into the overall normative score for comparative purposes.

Deliverables

All subscribers to the Citizen Satisfaction syndicated study will receive:

Tele-consulting with Ipsos staff on how to customize the study for your municipality (custom questions, booster samples)
PowerPoint slides of the results
Detailed Tables (Excel) with cross-tabulations of the major demographics
Access to Ipsos Reid’s municipal norms, where appropriate
In-person presentation of findings (travel billed extra)