Consumer Complaint Handling in the Public Sector vs the Private Sector

Why Public Administrators Need to Be More Transparent When Dealing With Constituents & Stakeholders

Consumers are treated differently in the private sector than the public sector for a variety of reasons. Privately owned businesses are more intimate and require more customer service because the business relies more heavily on customers. In the public sector, a public service tend to lack customer service skills since the service being offered is seen as necessity for the customer. This defines the difference between private and sector services in that private sector is dependent upon the customer and public sector is not. This is root problem in the public sector that goes to the heart of inefficiency and lack of productivity. Often consumer complaints are never taken seriously in the public sector and rarely reach the policy makers for these services.

Public administrators need to be more open when dealing with constituents and stakeholders because they provide the necessary feedback to make improvements to the service. For instance if the service in question is causing people problems when using it and this in turn creates more work for the service workers than this feedback needs to be understood by the policy makers. Only by understanding stakeholder needs can policy makers make effective changes to increase the efficiency of programs.

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