Developers and the city of Durango’s Community Development Department frequently work together to ensure construction projects meet city zoning requirements. Developers are often deeply invested in their projects, and timely approvals are strongly desired.
Under Durango City Manager Jose Madrigal’s direction, Community Development — which reviews and approves private and public developments, oversees the Housing Innovation Division and performs other core city functions — is analyzing its own customer service from the perspective of the developer.
City planner Savannah Lytle said that staff determined through customer outreach the most desired customer service improvement is the city’s ability to meet customer needs and reach decisions on development applications more promptly and efficiently.
City planner Daniel Murray said Community Development is devoting a lot of resources to improving its processes and enhancing staff knowledge and abilities.
“There’s a lot of value in staff becoming experts in certain types of development or in certain zone districts,” he said.
The city is also looking to understand the context of individual customer interactions in order to respond to needs with context-sensitive solutions.
“We know that developers are often invested financially and emotionally in their projects,” he said. “So we do take the time, above all, to listen.”
He said when many developers are making the same alternative compliance requests, which if obliged grant relief from strict compliance to certain zoning standards, it indicates a code amendment is needed to address a common problem.
Land use and building inspector Chris Simpson said Community Development staff spent a week quantifying the number and variety of ways they interacted with customers.
Over one week, Community Development had 320 phone calls, addressed 86 walk-in customers, sent and received 575 emails, posted five public notices, conducted 50 inspections and held 63 meetings with customers. There were 1,098 total customer interactions over a week. Community Development also had 974 website visits.
Assuming that activity represents an average week for the department, that totals 54,900 customer interactions across the year, Simpson said.
“We realize the importance of these interactions and try to make each one count,” he said.
Murray said at last week’s Durango City Council meeting that the overarching concept of Community Development’s customer service strategy is “building community together.”
Community Development is not the only city department examining its customer service strategy. Madrigal said he directed each department to develop its own strategy for interacting with and serving the residents of Durango.
In an interview with The Durango Herald last month, Madrigal shared his strategy for improving customer service by propelling a culture shift among city staff, raising morale and helping employees and administrators pinpoint the value in their work.
cburney@durangoherald.com
