Citizen satisfaction surveys are about more than satisfaction: How municipalities turn citizen insight into real change

A citizen satisfaction survey is a structured measurement of how citizens experience the services and offerings provided by their municipality — and what they want changed. The demands on the solutions and services that municipal institutions offer keep rising in step with technological development and the way our habits change. The same trend shows up at national level, most recently in the Danish Reform Commission's new recommendations to job centres, which call for higher citizen involvement and stronger cross-departmental collaboration.

This article shows what a citizen satisfaction survey is built to do, why the value sits in the follow-up rather than the score itself, and how Danish municipalities use the instrument across welfare reviews, mobility analyses, climate plans and more — through concrete customer cases.

A citizen satisfaction survey is a structured measurement that captures how citizens experience their municipality's services, initiatives and offerings — and what they would change. For Danish municipalities and regions, the instrument is most often used to inform welfare reviews, mobility analyses, climate plans, building projects and similar broad public-sector initiatives. The end goal is not the satisfaction score itself, but the concrete changes the survey enables. 

It is no secret that the demands on the solutions and services that municipal institutions provide are rising in step with technological development and the way our habits change. The same trend shows up at national level — most recently in the Danish Reform Commission's new recommendations to job centres, which call for higher citizen involvement and stronger cross-departmental collaboration. Among other things, the Commission proposes greater inclusion of socially vulnerable citizens, and an annual satisfaction survey to be incorporated into the new benchmarking of job centres and to give citizens more influence.  

The first step is insight into what citizens think about your services and offerings as they are now. What is the municipality doing well? What is it doing less well? What do citizens want more of? What do they want less of? The end goal of any such satisfaction survey — whether it is a welfare review, a mobility analysis, a climate survey, or something else entirely — is of course to measure the level of satisfaction. But the purpose, and the eventual return, is a different story altogether.

The purpose is not only new knowledge — it is also about how that knowledge is best used to launch new initiatives, improve existing services, involve citizens more, optimise the use of public funds, and collaborate with other departments and private companies.

Three concrete returns from a citizen satisfaction survey

• Insight into the areas where things are going well — and the areas where things are going less well — helps prioritise future initiatives.
• Citizen involvement in idea generation and planning paves the way for new ideas, and gives citizens more ownership of municipal development.
• Citizens' views on successful and less successful initiatives help set the direction for new initiatives in the future — repeating what worked, improving what did not.

The first step, as mentioned, is new knowledge in the form of a citizen satisfaction survey. But it is only the first step.

If you stop the journey after the survey is finished, it is not only the work that is wasted. All the potential to improve services, solutions and offerings goes with it — not to mention the time citizens spent participating in the survey.

It is in the follow-up work that knowledge becomes change.

At Surveyxact by Ramboll, we have more than two decades of experience with all kinds of satisfaction surveys. We provide world-leading tools and the professional advisory that makes it possible to capture exactly the knowledge you are looking for, from exactly the citizens you are looking to reach. But more importantly, we focus on the entire journey — not just the first step.

Three principles that turn data into change

• Relevant knowledge is captured.
• That knowledge has to be presented in action-oriented reports.
• The reports have to lead to concrete real-world changes.

That is why a citizen satisfaction survey is not only about the survey or the knowledge collection on its own. The purpose is to capture relevant knowledge at the right time, and then to use that knowledge to create concrete changes that citizens can actually feel. That is what we mean when we say we help municipalities and regions create knowledge for change.

A citizen satisfaction survey can be broad, providing an overall picture of the municipality's initiatives and citizens' attitudes toward the work the municipality is doing. Or it can be concrete and targeted at a specific department, institution or task.

Regular welfare reviews, in particular, make it possible to capture important information about specific areas — schools, care homes, the job centre, citizen service — so that offerings and services always move in step with citizens' actual needs. Welfare reviews can also capture citizens' attitudes toward waste plans, building projects, nature, environment, climate action and much more.

Selected customer cases

• Slagelse, Odense, Esbjerg and Kiel municipalities revolutionised preventive home visits in elderly care: improved citizen welfare and job satisfaction while lowering costs.
• Zealand municipalities brought citizens on board for a major new waste plan: structured citizen involvement in plan design and implementation.
• Stevns Municipality used climate surveys: to build an ambitious climate plan that involves citizens directly in the project.