How are we doing? How can we help your company grow? One of the tools our department uses to track that information is the Small Business Survey and the 2019 results have just been released. 

In 2017, Salt Lake City’s Department of Economic Development partnered with EDC Utah to pilot a program to survey over 5,000 businesses. For this first year and every year since, we ask a series of questions – we want to know who is expanding and why, and barriers may exist. This, in turn, is a helpful way to understand SLC’s value proposition to our local businesses and to help find potential solutions that stakeholders can help solve.

We also ask a simple question, “Would you be willing to recommend doing business in Salt Lake City?”  The resulting answers tally up to form what is called a Net Promoter Score (NPS).

net-promoter-score

What is a Net Promoter Score?  How does it work?

The Net Promoter Score® is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products or services to others. Again, in this case, it is the willingness of a business owner to recommend doing business in Salt Lake City. A “good” NPS is zero. Our first survey result in 2017 NPS revealed a score of -25. And that was a bit disheartening as we first set out to build a new department. At the time, the majority of respondents were not familiar with Salt Lake City’s Department of Economic Development or the programs and assistance we can provide them.  But it was also a great opportunity to set specific goals and a work plan to improve that score. Results are in for 2019 and we’re happy to report we’re now at a +6. We were aiming for “good” at zero but we surpassed it! Great news, right?

The shift required to make that happen in just a few short years is pretty great. Collectively it’s a whole team effort, to increase that score is a big deal.

netpromoterscoregraph

The survey provides closed loop feedback – we can get at the root causes and correct the issue more quickly. Accountability is an important issue to us. Our team is data driven and we hold ourselves to the numbers.

How do we use this information year-round?

While the survey is conducted once per year, but we are constantly revisiting feedback and fine tuning our work plan throughout the year. We host public input round tables throughout the year, meet with local industry groups, and get monthly input from the City’s Business Advisory Board. We conduct site visits for more one-on-one feedback. 312 site visit this fiscal year (since July 1, 2018) and 796 since the creation of the department. This is a relatively new service available to business owners, contact our team to set yours up.

We are working to connect businesses with the help they need and improve communication to get the job done. If you would like to schedule a site visit, or learn more about this program contact us at http://www.slc.gov/ed