Citizen satisfaction with federal government websites declines for a third consecutive quarter, according to the first quarter report of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index. The Index aggregate score for the first quarter of 2008 fell to 72.4 on ACSI’s 100-point scale, its lowest score in thee years and a full point lower than one year ago.
“These are trying times for the American consumer. Customer satisfaction is declining overall, and the government isn’t doing any better,” said Prof. Claes Fornell, head of ACSI at the University of Michigan. “Citizen satisfaction with e-government is now slipping like everything else.”
The report cites two possible factors contributing to the decline in satisfaction this quarter. In this election year, there is no clear sense that the level of focus or commitment to improving e-government will be shared with a new administration. Some presidential candidates have mentioned the importance of the Internet to improving the citizen experience, and others have not mentioned anything at all.
“When President Bush made e-government a priority in his management agenda, we saw an improvement in satisfaction. But there’s no telling whether or not that commitment will be shared by a new administration,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results and author of the report. “Some government websites may be holding off on putting the necessary resources into improving the citizen experience until they have a better sense of whether or not they’ll be able to finish what they start. Unfortunately, citizens are the big losers when e-government is in limbo.”
A second contributing factor to slipping satisfaction with federal websites is the decline in the category of portals and department main sites, which dropped more than three points to 71.7 since reaching its all-time high in the second quarter of 2006. Portals and department main sites – which serve either as the gateway to a department or to link users to information from external sources -- often face the challenge of not being able to control all of the site features and content that affect citizen satisfaction.
Citizen satisfaction with the e-commerce/transaction category of federal websites continues to improve. The category climbs 1.5 percent this quarter to 75.7, but not enough to offset the declines from every other category, including news/information (-0.8% to 71.7) and career/recruitment (-0.1% to 77.1). Despite the improvement, the e-commerce category still lags private sector e-commerce significantly.
“The increasing scores for the e-commerce category of e-government indicate that citizens are eager for government sites to evolve from information sources to conduits for conducting business with the government,” said Freed.
ABOUT THE ACSI
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is the only uniform, national, cross-industry measure of satisfaction with the quality of goods and services available in the United States. In 1999, the Federal government selected ACSI to be a standard metric for measuring citizen satisfaction. Over 100 Federal government agencies have used ACSI to measure citizen satisfaction of more than 200 services and programs. The Index is produced by the University of Michigan, in partnership with the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and CFI Group, an international consulting firm. ForeSee Results sponsors the e-commerce, e-business, and e-government indexes.
ABOUT FORESEE RESULTS, INC.
As the leader in online customer satisfaction measurement, ForeSee Results captures and analyzes online voice of customer data to help organizations increase loyalty, recommendations and website value. Using the methodology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), ForeSee Results identifies the improvements to websites and other online initiatives with the greatest ROI. With over 28 million survey responses collected to date and benchmarks across dozens of industries, ForeSee Results offers unparalleled expertise in customer satisfaction measurement and management. ForeSee Results works with clients across the public and private sectors.
ForeSee Results, a privately held company, is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan and on the web at www.ForeSeeResults.com.
ABOUT THE FEDERAL CONSULTING GROUP
The Federal Consulting Group, a franchise of the Department of the Treasury, serves as the executive agent in the government for the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), and holds generic clearance from the Office of Management and Budget that enables agencies to utilize ACSI without having to obtain a separate clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act to conduct customer satisfaction surveys. Agencies can participate in the ACSI through an arrangement between the Federal Consulting Group and ForeSee Results.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Chaat Butsunturn
Quelle/Source: Businesswire, 18.03.2008
