Customer survey release delayed until December

Don't look for the next governmentwide customer satisfaction survey until December, project officials said Tuesday. In January, officials with the now-defunct National Partnership for Reinventing Government said that broader results of the 2000 customer satisfaction survey would be unveiled this spring. The results have been tabulated, but the survey's managers have decided to release them in tandem with the full 2001 survey, which will not be finished until December. This will garner more public attention, according to the survey's overseers. "We want the splash to be as big as possible," said David VanAmburg, an official with the University of Michigan Business School, which conducts the survey. The survey ranks agencies on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which has been used as a gauge of customer satisfaction for more than 200 private companies since 1994. The ACSI provides each agency with a numerical score from 0 to 100 based on customer expectations, perceived quality and perceived value. First conducted in 1999, the survey is based on interviews with about 30 customer groups as selected by agencies. Agencies determine which customers are interviewed for the survey, and have pursued different strategies as they seek feedback on their activities. For example, while the Federal Emergency Management Agency has surveyed a random sample of disaster assistance recipients, considered primary customers of FEMA services, the Environmental Protection Agency has selected reference librarians who use the EPA Web site and respond to questions about the environment. In December, the University of Michigan and the Federal Consulting Group, a Treasury Department unit that inherited survey management duties from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, will release 2001 survey results for these original 30 customer groups. At the same time, survey overseers will release results for more than 60 new customer groups for the year 2000, including several first-time agency participants, among them the Small Business Administration and the Energy Department. All of these customer groups will be folded into the 2002 survey, according to VanAmburg. While the public will have to wait a little longer for the expanded survey, the Federal Consulting Group is encouraging agencies to stay on the customer satisfaction bandwagon. The organization has formed an interagency working group on customer service that will explore how customer feedback can be used as a management tool, among other topics. Agencies will likely pay for the survey themselves next year, when funding from the General Services Administration runs out, according to VanAmburg and franchise officials. The Federal Consulting Group is also encouraging agencies to survey customers who are the primary users of their services. Critics have long questioned the survey because agencies decide what customers to interview, and some have surveyed arguably easy-to-please customers. "My hope is that agencies will really step up to the plate and measure their most important customers," said Anne Kelly, director of the Federal Consulting Group. The following table contains a working list of all customer groups to be interviewed in both surveys to be released in December. New participants for the survey are in italics.

Source: Federal Consulting Group