FREEDyourMind

Satisfaction with E-Gov is Down

Every quarter, we help the University of Michigan with the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index. We measure more than 100 federal government websites to see a) overall, are citizens satisfied with online government initiatives and b) how satisfied are they with individual sites?

The answer this quarter isn’t great: satisfaction is down for the third quarter in a row, and now it’s at its lowest score in more than three years. You can get the report, with ACSI scores and analysis for 100+ federal websites here.

One of the reasons I think the scores are dipping is the lame duck effect. President Bush, love him or hate him, has spent administration time and energy on e-gov, through making it one of the five goals of the President’s Management Agenda and through other means. But there’s no certainty about what a new administration may mean for e-gov initiatives, and I think that may make them hesitant to make the changes they need to make to keep satisfaction up. Steve Barr, federal columnist for the Washington Post, told a colleague that he usually doesn’t see the lame duck effect until summer, but he could see that might be part of it. He also mentioned that a lot of agencies got their budgets late, and that could be part of the problem as well.

A scan of the presidential candidates’ websites shows that only Barack Obama has anything significant about e-gov as part of their campaign platform, and his point is more about using e-gov for transparency than for citizens' convenience and ease or for cost-saving measures. After a very quick look, I don’t see anything on either Clinton’s or McCain’s website specifically about e-gov. (Though, you can compare your NCAA picks with John McCain, a crucial feature neither of the other candidates offers!). So who knows what the future holds for e-gov. It seems clear that it will have to be a priority of any administration both because it can save the federal government so much money and because it should be the mission of any administration to be citizen-centric, which is what the web is all about. But 2/3 of the candidates don't seem to be thinking much about it yet.

Hopefully I’ll be posting more often in the coming weeks. We’re coming down off a crazy period that has had me running dawn ‘til dusk.

Quarterly ACSI E-Gov Index

Four times a year, we work with the University of Michigan on the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s (ACSI) E-Gov Satisfaction Index, a rating of more than 90 federal government websites in terms of how well they are satisfying citizens via the web channel. You can download the full report with scores for individual government websites here or read news coverage of it in Gov Exec, ComputerWorld, or Destination CRM.

For this quarter’s report, my colleague Errol Hau and I actually surveyed the top performing sites (sites that scored over 80 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale, generally considered to be the threshold for excellence) to see what these sites had in common. Why were they able to do so well? Our informal survey shows that sites that achieve top-performer status of 80 or above have several things in common:

• Total commitment to meeting the public’s diverse needs: Many government sites serve diverse publics, which can be challenging. Sites with high citizen satisfaction have learned how to use customer satisfaction analytics to first identify who is visiting their site then customize the online content to serve the needs of their multiple stakeholders. The high scores for content obtained by top-performing sites are proof of their success in this area.

• Recognition by management of the web’s strategic value: Many top-performing sites report having top-down support by management, with recognition by the agency or department director of the strategic value of the online channel. While many high-scoring sites face the familiar challenges of limited budget, staff and time, the fact that they’re supported fully by management enables them to better meet citizens’ needs

• Use of “Voice of citizen” data as an improvement tool: Sites that do a great job from the perspective of their users view citizen satisfaction as more than just a metric. They use data gathered via the reliable and scientific methodology of the ACSI to make both small and large-scale improvements to their sites to keep ahead of citizens’ continually evolving needs. While still challenged by search and navigation like government sites as a whole, top-performing sites outperform the e-government average in these key satisfaction drivers.

• Focus on the mission of citizen service: Sites that excel at meeting the needs of the public consider efficient and effective citizen service to be their mission. Because they put citizens’ needs at the core of all they do, these top-performing sites score well above average in all of the elements measured by the ACSI methodology. . . . .

No matter what a federal website’s score or ultimate mission, it is clear that these four factors are the cornerstone of building a truly superior e-gov website.

Are You Satisfied With E-Gov?

When was the last time you were in pursuit of information from government? When was the last time you had to fill out a government form? The internet has played a major role in making that process easier. It is hard to remember a time that e-gov wasn’t available to us to check on the status of a tax refund, or find out how to renew your passport, and the list goes on. But the last time you visited a .gov site, was it a good experience? Was it all it could be? Are you going to return to the site in the future? What could that .gov site done better?

Those are the burning questions on the minds of those responsible for the e-gov efforts. The most recent report on Federal Government Website Customer Satisfaction was recently released by The University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center and sponsored by ForeSee Results.

Citizen satisfaction with federal websites registered a slight improvement, according to the second quarter report from the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index. The e-commerce and transactions category showed the greatest increase of any other category, inching the E-Government Satisfaction Index forward 0.4% to 73.7 on a 100-point scale and reversing last quarter’s drop.

Although aggregate satisfaction with federal websites improved incrementally, it still lags the private sector, which continues to set the bar for online satisfaction. E-government scored 8.5% and 3.8% behind private sector e-commerce (80) and e-business industries (76.5), respectively.

Private sector e-commerce is one of the strongest performing sectors measured by the ACSI and still holds the edge over e-government transactional and e-commerce sites. But as more federal websites allow citizens to do business online with government, satisfaction is improving. On aggregate, the customer satisfaction score for sites that offer transactional or e-commerce capabilities rose 3.5% from last quarter to 76.8.

Three of the strongest performing e-commerce and transactional sites belong to the Social Security Administration (SSA). Internet Social Security Benefits Application site (88), Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs site (87), and Social Security Business Services Online (83), provide superior satisfaction by even private sector standards.

Customer 2.0: An Online Customer Centricity Summit for E-Gov

We are excited at ForeSee Results to be holding our first Customer 2.0 Summit on May 1st in Washington, D.C. for e-gov practitioners.

So what is the this summit all about?

We at ForeSee Results are bringing together a great list of subject matter experts including:

• Megan Burns, Forrester Research Senior Analyst – Best practices to help organizations measure the online customer experience and to deliver better customer experiences across multiple channels.
• Dr. Claes Fornell, Professor of Business and Director of the National Quality Research Center (NQRC) at the University of Michigan – Discussion of the role of customer satisfaction in the public versus the private sectors
• Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project – Research-based perspectives on “Understanding Internet Users”
• Larry Freed, President & CEO of ForeSee Results (that's me) –update on new products and applications
• Case studies and panel discussion – real-world examples of the power of customer satisfaction analytics
• Product demonstrations – new and emerging product developments
• Meet & greet — members of the ForeSee Results Client Services team

The goal of the summit is to create a dialogue on the importance of the online customer (or prospect, or visitor) with a focus on public sector organizations along with non-profits, associations and quasi government organizations. We are expecting over 250 attendees including many ForeSee Results customers along with others.

Watch for a similar event to be held in early September in Ann Arbor. The September event will have a focus that will cover all industries. More information coming soon!