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Community Profile
The City of Olathe, in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, was founded in 1857 and serves as the county seat. It is the fourth-most populous City in the Kansas City metropolitan area and Kansas, with a population of 150,000 residents. The City of Olathe is home to just over 1,000 employees who work in various sectors, including education, recreation, maintenance, and more.
Currently, Olathe ranks 10% above the national average in every major category of City services (recreational, economic, and living standards). More importantly, the City of Olathe consistently ranks as one of the best places to work, live, and raise a family.
Challenge
In the early stages as the City of Olathe entered a period of rapid growth, the city recognized that it would need to streamline its processes to meet the needs of its constituents. The city’s leadership aimed for a clearer understanding of the community’s needs, emphasizing the importance of statistically valid results to guide future decision-making. The incumbent survey process, crucial for understanding customer needs, proved cumbersome, slowing down operations and decision-making. Limited operational flexibility made it challenging for Olathe to swiftly adapt to changing community demands. Consequently, market research efforts were hampered by the absence of comprehensive data and insights. Without access to comprehensive data and insights, staying ahead of industry trends and consumer preferences was difficult for the City of Olathe. With the overarching goal of improving the quality of life for Olathe residents, The City of Olathe recognized the importance of its mission but faced hurdles in achieving tangible results.
Action
In response, ETC Institute’s expertise in survey design and data analysis provided invaluable support in refining Olathe’s survey design and administration. Working closely with ETC Institute, The City of Olathe shortened its lengthy survey, focusing on key priorities identified through community input. This strategic shift allowed for a more targeted approach to gathering resident feedback, ensuring that the city could better address concerns while also improving overall citizen satisfaction. The City of Olathe benefited from ETC Institute’s analysis dashboards, serving as a benchmark for the community’s direction. Included in the data were already established and thriving communities, which provided replicable insights to the City of Olathe, assisting them in their future communal endeavors. ETC Institute was not only able to provide valuable market research but also improve internal review systems such as employee satisfaction and retention metrics.
“I would certainly recommend ETC Institute. We have a long-standing relationship where we all work together. This provides us with a benchmark to see how other community leaders are moving the needle.”
Nolan Sunderman
Results
The partnership with ETC Institute yielded tangible results for the City of Olathe, driving improvements across various performance indicators:
- Streamlined existing survey process by 73%
- Improved internal evaluation systems
- Provided extensive market research on 30 different metrics
Through its collaboration with ETC Institute, the City of Olathe learned that 91% of its citizens are satisfied or very satisfied with their quality of life in the city.
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