In a similar survey released earlier this year, Accenture noted a similar trend. "In the past -- say the last two to four years -- we saw an initial push for governments to get as many services online as possible," Steven Rohleder, group chief executive of Accenture's government practice, told CRMDaily.com. Those earlier endeavors were fairly predictable -- concentrating mainly on setting up static portals and otherwise publishing the services and documents offered by a particular agency.
Now, Rohleder says, it has become obvious that e-government is moving into a new stage -- "one that is focused on customer satisfaction."
Practical Considerations
Given the red ink in which the federal and, now, state and local governments -- thanks to federal cutbacks in state assistance -- are drowning, it would seem likely that e-government, much like e-commerce, would be relegated to back-burner status. Indeed, the more grandiose projects have been shelved or modified. What money is available is plowed into smaller, more targeted projects. "The evolution of e-government is to re-organize information and services in accordance with how users think and want to interact, as opposed to the way government is organized," the E-government Index states.
For example, the NWHIC's women's-health Web site "matches expectations created by the best commercial Web sites in terms of look and feel, navigation and related matters," plus has the added credibility of the Health and Human Services government (that is, non-profit) bias.
Ironically, the one area that probably should score the highest in terms of navigation and ease of use -- the various agencies' job sites -- shows spotty results. But then again, the same can be said for commercial sites -- although, as government does have its own special problems attracting talent, special efforts should be made in this regard.
"Continuing evolution in this area is vital if the government is to compete directly," the survey says. Exceptions, though, are duly noted (for example, www.careers.state.gov), which claims a not-bad-at-all score of 73.
The NWHIC and NASA Web site scores of 83 and 79, respectively, are followed by NASA's Education Program and Spacelink (www.spacelink.nasa.gov) at 78. Other Web sites noted in the survey include Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (www.ers.usda.gov), at 76, and FirstGov.gov, at 74.
Beyond Web pages
In some areas, though, cities and states are outclassing the feds in their endeavors. Aberdeen Group vice president Denis Pombriant cites New York City's 311 program, which shunts non-emergency callers away from the vital phone banks of 911.
Typically, these callers are individuals looking for information about city services who get so frustrated when they can't find it, they call 911, Pombriant told CRMDaily. Based on a combination of home-grown apps and Siebel's (Nasdaq: SEBL) contact-center suite, "New York's system is a sophisticated one that synthesizes information for the call-center agents, thus saving the government money in the long run -- not to mention vastly improving services," he said.
Quelle: NewsFactor Network
