Are Residents Clients??

When I worked for the York Region government they made us attend workshops for teaching staff how to treat clients. I assumed customer service had been a problem because they focused on how to talk to people , how to treat them and huge emphasis on the words client and customer. If you believe we're not clients then why do you advertise in print media to promote town services? What is the town's advertising budget btw?

Good article, Tom. In sophisticated marketing terms, Council functions as stewards of the wealth of the Town. That 'wealth' envelopes the living experience of the citizenry at the end of the day which is the return on everyone's investment being here! You should poll your colleagues and staff to ask each what is their main (top) priority they address each day. Then compare to discover if they are all on the same page. And then do the same with your customer base. THEN do a Situation Analysis starting with Answering 'Where are we at?" [i.e. what are our resources]- not "How did we get here?" From all that specific goals can be realistically established - and solutions executed. The key to success is to get everyone out of the Analyze It, Complicate It, Debate It To Death scenario and focus on the Do It, Try It, Fix It to get things done and make things happen. What pleases me is the way you are communicating as we all learn. Good job.

Nice article, Tom, thanks for posting it. I agree with you, as I learned it first hand through 10 years of trial-and-error and follow-up research on the very idea, and I found that there are several axioms to be learned: 1. Business is the for-profit expression of a desired experience. 2. Most people don't volunteer to pay the gov't for anything. 3. Municipalities are not businesses. 4. Citizens are not customers. Personally, I feel that nearly 100% of people that have not spent time in gov't, don't understand its design, fundamentally. I also feel that almost 50% of people in gov't don't understand its purpose. While I agree that revenue comes from resident people and businesses, and that there might be some services chosen to be purchased from gov't by some of those residents, the goal of gov't can't ever be for-profit. "For profit" is what makes a business a business, not revenue, despite the wonderful multi-bottom-line approach of many modern businesses. Only once profit is at least one primary goal is an entity a business, and at that point, corruption becomes a constant in every decision. The only goal of gov't is for the delivery of essential services for its citizens in the most cost-effective and competitive manner feasible.

I would also disagree with this. Nearly 40% of Aurora's revenues in 2015 came from user fees, more than from taxation. The Town of Aurora sells quite a bit. The 2 biggest categories of user fees were 'Environmental Services' and 'Parks & Facilities'. A large number of the 'Parks and Facilities' goods or services could be shopped around (i.e. seasonal activities, fitness programs, facility usage) with a competitor. Nothing prevents a user from going to Newmarket, Richmond Hill or some other non-government provider. Many other services outside 'Parks and Facilities' can be purchased from other municipalities based on factors such as cost or turn around time (i.e. $480 to have a civil marriage ceremony in Aurora vs $117 in Toronto). Residents represent both the shareholder and the customers. Profit is not the only end purpose of businesses. Alphabet (formerly Google) has never paid a dividend and states in their financial statements that they do not intend to pay a dividend in the foreseeable future. For Alphabet the purpose of prophet is to re-invest in growth and development of the organization thereby increasing of the stock value for the shareholders (who may also buy Google products). This would be no different for a municipality which is try to grow services and value for it's residents and potential new residents. I can tell you as someone who formerly lived in Aurora and is looking to move back to the suburbs I am evaluating the services and value provided by municipalities to it's residents. This, for me, represents a very critical factor in deciding where to raise my family.

I disagree. Municipalities do have competitors and people do move if they don't like where they are. Residents are clients.