The Town of Herndon announces a new customer service initiative Monday, Jan. 14, called “Count ON Us.” Named to connect with the town’s new branding strategy, the initiative will focus on increasing customer satisfaction with the town’s services.

“We’ve worked hard over the last few months to improve all services within the town, to make sure we’re going the extra step for our citizens,” said Art Anselene, town manager. “When a citizen has a problem, hopefully we can not only solve it, but go out of our way to find as many alternative solutions as we can.”

Town employees have been training in the new initiatives for the past three months, everything from making the building site plan process more efficient to making sure people working payment windows are smiling.

“We highlighted a lot of small things, to smiling as customers, to making sure we always say ‘thank you’ and being as friendly as we can,” Anselane said. “It’s all about making a more positive experience for people who live and work in this town.”

Along with making sure customers are treated with respect and given accurate information, another major part of the initiative is to improve the feedback process.

“We will have customer comment cards placed at all of our service locations, part of what we’re working on to get as much feedback as we can,” said Ron Tillman, manager of the Herndon Community Center. “And our website will have information about how to send comments in, and we’re working on online comment submission forms right now.”

The town has also enacted a program where staff members who are identified for providing excellent service for the Count ON Us receive Service Awards.

“I can’t say I’ve ever been treated poorly by anyone from the Town of Herndon, so I’m not sure it’s that much of an issue,” said Maria Shari of Herndon. “But I’m certainly not going to complain about the town going out of their way to treat its residents better.”

George Wells of Herndon said good customer service is something he pays attention to.

“Places with good customer service stick out in my mind, if it’s a toss up between two restaurants and I remember going to one of them and being treated very well, I’ll choose them 10 times out of 10,” he said. “Maybe one day I’ll go in to pay my water bill and I’ll be in a bad mood, and someone with the town has such a good attitude that it brightens my day. In that case, I think this program will be well worth it.”