City Hall Will Focus on Public Relations

A program to train city employees on how to be polite and helpful to residents who come to City Hall for assistance is scheduled to start in January.

Kathy Moore, the city’s administrative services manager, said anti-government sentiment filters down to City Hall and can create “a negative scenario” at times.

People can’t voice their feelings to federal officials in Washington, she said, but they can express how they feel at the local level.

“The bottom line is that our employees can’t get mad,” she said. “The focus will be on being ‘carefrontational’ instead of confrontational.”

The first of 10 training sessions, scheduled to start Jan. 12, will concentrate on the principles of effective customer service, words customers most want to hear, and managing the first 30 seconds of an encounter, Moore said.

There also will be a session dealing with “difficult customers,” with an emphasis on what can be done rather than what can’t be done, Moore said.

City Councilman Robert F. Dinsen acknowledged Wednesday that he has received complaints occasionally about how employees respond to residents.

“They’ve got to realize they’re serving the public and that we are all the servants of the people,” Dinsen said.

Dinsen said that he listens politely to complaints and, if he can’t help solve problems, he puts residents into contact with those who can be of assistance.

The consultant coordinating the training is Tom Steiner of Encinitas, a specialist in the field of customer service who has put together programs for other cities.