Navy personnel question customer satisfaction survey results

In early August, Navy technology officials announced that customer satisfaction levels for the Navy Marine Corps Intranet were near 80 percent and rising. That declaration has unleashed a wave of anger from Navy and Marine Corps personnel who say they have yet to meet a person, military or civilian, who is pleased with the massive new intranet system.

The NMCI program, which is designed to implement a secure network connecting all Navy and Marine Corps personnel, could end up costing more than $8 billion. According to Navy officials, NMCI soon will have more than 350,000 connected users-making it the world's largest intranet. Service officials and representatives from Texas-based prime contractor EDS have said that some problems are to be expected as the program is being developed and delivered. Program officials insist the majority of Navy users are happy with NMCI.

A casual sampling of Navy personnel, however, failed to uncover a single satisfied user. Many were sharply critical of the program.

"There are more problems than you could shoot at," said a Navy civilian who asked not to be identified. "Productivity of daily processes are slowed to a snail's pace, and it practically takes an act of Congress to get problems fixed."

Many others were skeptical about the accuracy of the customer satisfaction surveys. A Navy facility manager who works outside Washington said people who require only e-mail and word processing might be satisfied with the new system.

"Every organization is different and requires different software to operate efficiently. We've come up with some really good, innovative ways to use software that we need, but if it's not on the system, we can't use it," he said. "I guess there are people out there, if [e-mail and word processing] is all they do, they might be happy with it. I did find one guy who said he might be OK with it."

NMCI program officials have said they distribute the survey online, and about 30 percent of those are returned. Several service personnel, however, said they do not know anyone who has taken the survey.

"Who is NMCI surveying? Not us users who have to put up with the crawling Internet access and buggy software, computers that lock up for unknown reasons, laptop hard drives crashing," said another Navy official who asked not to be identified. "I would have fired EDS long ago."

NMCI users also complained that the customer satisfaction levels-which they believe are inflated-have prevented a serious look at what needs to be fixed within NMCI.

"We've got a team of good guys here, but this tool is an enormous hindrance," the facility manager said. "I do not exaggerate when I say that NMCI has cut personal productivity by 20 percent."