Listening and responding to residents through surveys
London Borough of Ealing offers services
for the 342,000 residents of London’s third
largest borough. More than 3,500 of the
council’s employees manage services ranging
from housing and schools to parking and
recycling. SurveyMonkey Enterprise helps
Ealing employees stay in touch regularly
with residents and make sure their feedback
affects decisions about borough services.
At a Glance
Situation
• Surveying residents via paper
surveys or door-to-door visits
is slow and costly
• Local government departments want
to manage their own surveys, yet
need a central way to share results
Survey Results
• By eliminating paper surveys,
costs drop by as much as £5,000
pounds per mailing
• Residents’ panel gains higher
engagement with fewer members,
with more frequent surveys
Smarter Decisions
• Residents provide valuable
feedback for streamlining payments
and processes for the housing
benefit system
• Consultations on new parking
regulations are now managed
through surveys, fast-tracking
implementation of parking zones
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Community Feedback Case Study
“We have a duty to
consult with Ealing
residents when
making decisions,
big or small, that
affect them—but surveying a diverse
population on a wide range of issues
is challenging for our lean staff to
manage. SurveyMonkey Enterprise
makes it easy for every department to
run its own surveys, collect feedback,
and act on what they learn.”
– Rajiv Ahlawat, Research and Consultation Manager, London Borough of Ealing
What decisions did you make using survey feedback?
About twice a month, the council
reviews the need for new or existing
Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs),
which limit how and when people
can park in an area. We use
SurveyMonkey to get feedback
from local residents. The decision
to institute a CPZ is almost entirely
based on the results of these
surveys—if a majority of residents
do not want it in their area, the
proposals are not taken forward.
– Rajiv Ahlawat, Research and Consultation Manager, London Borough of Ealing
Finding out how more than 340,000
borough residents feel about everything
from council housing to parking zones is a
big undertaking, especially if you’re going
door to door or mailing thousands of paper
surveys. SurveyMonkey Enterprise eliminates
resource-intensive personal visits as well
mailing/inputting expenses for Ealing, while
also boosting engagement from community
members.
“The results from our surveys inform decisions
the council makes, so it’s important that we
get accurate feedback from our community,”
explains Rajiv Ahlawat, Research and
Consultation Manager for Ealing. “But every
department—such as housing, transport, and
children’s services—needs to manage its own
surveys in a way that saves time and money,
and draws as many responses as possible.
We needed to find a user-friendly way to do
online surveys.”
SurveyMonkey Enterprise gives Ahlawat
and his colleagues the mix of easy survey
administration and fast feedback that they
need. “Last year, there was a big change
in how social benefits were paid out for
housing allowances—the payments from
the central government were given to local
governments to administer,” Ahlawat says.
“The changes were complex, and we had
to introduce residents to the new scheme.
By using surveys, we discovered which
elements of the policy residents like or didn’t
like, and we aligned the council tax support
system with their needs.”
SurveyMonkey Enterprise also helps
transform how Ealing council regularly
surveys a residents’ panel, which fields both
general queries, such as opinions on quality
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of borough services, to specific questions,
like what to name a resident’s feedback
feature on the Ealing website.
“We initially had 3,000 residents sign up
for the panel, but since we didn’t have ways
to reach them online, we asked questions
using newsletters and paper surveys,”
Ahlawat says. “This was costly, and the
response rate wasn’t very high. Today, our
panel consists of 800 people, but they’re
much more engaged, so we can survey
them more frequently.”
Learn more about how SurveyMonkey
Enterprise can help your entire team make
smarter decisions.
Visit surveymonkey.com/enterprise today.
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