And the award for Best Customer Service goes to…USAJobs! Finally – a federal agency (the Office of Personnel Management) that really, really listened to its audience and gave us what we want. Plain. Simple. To the point.
The new USAJobs website looks like Google. It’s a stripped-down version of its former self (which really wasn’t too bad). It recognizes that people want to do one basic thing when they visit: find government jobs. Yes, you can still get background information about working for the federal government. Yes, if you are you in a special audience group – veteran, student, person with disabilities – there’s a link right there for you, front and center. But nothing gets in the way of that single top task: find a job.
No trouble seeing where you should go first. No overwhelming long lists of choices. No unnecessary photos or graphics to distract us. We don’t have to wind our way through what the agency thinks we should know or news about what the agency is doing.
And when you go to second level pages, they’re just as easy to use and understand. They anticipate audience questions, without explaining every tiny esoteric little nuance or potential exception, ad nauseum.
What a breath of fresh air! What a terrific model for other agencies. You listened. You got it. You delivered what we want, in ways that make sense to us. Now that’s what I call good customer service! Very well done, OPM.
It is by far the cleanest, simplest federal site I’ve seen.
Great comments, Candi. I’m going to add a link to this blog post over in the forum where bunch of people have responded to the question “What Do You Think of the New USAJobs?” It’s an excellent contribution to the growing list of feedback (where Kim Bauhs of OPM is responding!).