Federal call centers offer best customer service, study finds

Federal telephone call centers provide better customer service than centers run by state and local agencies or private firms, according to a new study by the Purdue University Center for Customer-Driven Quality.

Purdue's "Government Call Centers Performance Benchmark Report," developed with consulting firm AMS, examined statistics from federal, state and local call centers and compared them with those gathered by private sector centers. The year-long study, which ended last fall, found that the quality of service provided by 100 government centers was better than service provided by industry centers. Customer satisfaction scores for government call centers were 10 percent higher than those for business-to-business call centers, and 30 percent higher than scores for business-to-consumer centers.

According to AMS, the study was the first to focus on public-sector call centers, which provide information on government programs and resolve complaints.

"All we really had was sort of anecdotal information about how we thought government agencies were doing in comparison to the private sector," said Jeff Ackerson, a customer relationship management expert for AMS.

According to the study, federal call centers also outshined their counterparts at the state and local level when it came to customer service. Employees at federal centers spent 20 percent less time on the phone solving problems than state and local call center employees, and 30 percent less time filling out paperwork and doing other related work after phone calls ended.

The study found that government call centers at all levels averaged 12 percent fewer errors than those at private firms.

Most government agencies got into the call center business in the mid-1990s. The Social Security Administration, which has operated a national, toll-free number since 1988, has one of the largest call center operations in the government. In fiscal 2001, citizens placed about 90 million calls to its toll-free number.

Because private companies have been in the call center business longer than government agencies, many people have assumed the agencies have not kept pace with industry's innovations, Ackerson said.

"In fact, this survey found that government call centers are already operating on mostly equal terms with private sector counterparts," Ackerson said.