This morning I attended the 2012 Government Customer Satisfaction Forum: Annual Results for the Federal Government, the event was sponsored by Federal Consulting Group and the National Business Center (DOI). Here was the agenda for the conference, followed by my quick notes and insights for the presentation:
- Keynote Speaker: Ron Raborg, Deputy Commissioner for Quality Performance, Social Security Administration
- Announcement of the 2011 Government-wide Customer Satisfaction Benchmark: Dr. Forrest Morgeson, Research Scientist, American Customer Satisfaction Index
- Presentation of Web and Program Customer Satisfaction Awards fr 2011
- 2011 Government Call Center Satisfaction Index
- 2011 Fourth Quarter and Annual E-Government Customer Satisfaction Benchmarks: Larry Freed, CEO, ForeSee, Inc.
My notes where quite lengthy, so I did my best to synthesize the information for you up front and if you would like, you can download my notes here (which has a lot more of the data talked about). If there are any questions about the data in the post or areas you want more information on, just leave a comment and I will do my best to provide further information.
Here is the Top 10:
- Customer service generally is improving across government based on ASCI study
- Challenges to customer service include: limited budgets, decreased staffing, increased workloads, privacy, data analysis and management
- Need to measure across multiple channels and think critically about the data from each
- Very high rates of satisfaction for in-person communication
- Executive Orders are great steps for government customer service
- Call centers are tough to measure, a longer call that solves a persons issue may be more effective than numerous short calls that re-direct a customer to different people
- Issues of the digital divide and how to provide customer service to the disabled are important challenges that cannot be lost with advances in technology
- Stark difference between how customer service is measured in private and public sector – but there is still a lot of room for each sector to learn, share and grow best practices
- Customer service expectations are increasingly growing in government, due to advances in private sector
- Great customer service leads to increases in citizen participation, transparency and accountability.
Interesting Data Reported
From the Social Security Administration:
- 45 million visitors to field office, customer satisfaction = 92%
- 25 million callers = 77% satisfaction rate, once they get by voice recognition and menu structure, increased rate
- Increased overall customer satisfaction rate from 78.2 to 81.4 FY 2010 FY 2011
From ASCI Annual Report
- Points are scaled 1-100
- For reference – in the mid 2000’s, the score peaked in the mid 70s
- Satisfaction is up for federal government from last year
- 65.4 FY 2010
- 66.9 FY 2011
- Year on year increased significantly up 1.5 points, gain of 2.3%
- Results by agency sample
- Defense 76
- Interior 74
- State 72
- Agriculture 72
- Commerce 71
- Veterans Affairs70
- Social Security Administration 69
- Health and Human Services 67
- Transporation Department 67
- Homeland Security 59
- Treasure Department 57
- Agency Trust Increased 1 point in FY 2011 from FY 2010(68 to 69)
- General Trust of Government Decreased in FY 2011 from FY 2010(41 down to 36
If you would like some more information on customer service, be sure to check out the GovLoop guide, Excelling with Customer Service.