E-Government continues to improve, according to the latest report by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). This quarter the ACSI measured 54 e-government websites to produce the current aggregate e-government satisfaction score of 71.2 on a 0-100 scale, a 1.2% increase over last quarter and a 5.4% increase from a year ago. The E-Government Satisfaction Index is reported quarterly as a special report of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which is produced by the University of Michigan in partnership with the American Society for Quality and CFI Group. The ACSI partners with the online satisfaction firm ForeSee Results for e-government data collection and analysis.
The categories measured by the report - portals/department main websites, information/news sites, e-commerce/ transaction sites and career/recruitment sites - all showed increases this quarter.
According to Larry Freed, online satisfaction expert and CEO of ForeSee Results, e-government portals are showing steady evolution. With a score of 70.5, e-government portals are nearly on par with private sector portals, reporting an increase of 7% over the past year. "Government portals bear watching," said Freed. "Portals have one of the most challenging jobs to do, serving a wide variety of user segments with distinctly different needs. Agencies need to understand who is using the site, what their needs are and how to balance the competing needs of different audiences."
The main website of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) achieved one of the largest increases this quarter with a score of 71, four points higher than the previous quarter. GAO undertook a major redesign in the past several months and the upward trend in satisfaction appears to be driven by changes that enable the Office to deliver online information more effectively to its wide variety of website visitors.
In the information/news category, the aggregate satisfaction score rose nearly 2% to 71.2. The best-performing websites continue to be health-information sites operated by the National Institutes of Health, especially MedlinePlus. Its score of 86 is just a step behind Amazon (88), the top performing ACSI e-commerce website.
Satisfaction with the e-commerce/transactions category improved .6%, although it still lags well behind private sector e-commerce. Even so, the U.S. Mint turned in a strong score of 80, up one point from last quarter.
Citizen satisfaction with recruitment and career websites edged upward as well, with a 1.6% increase. Top performers in this category - CIA Careers and USAJobs -- are unchanged from last quarter with scores of 79 and 76, respectively.
In addition, there was a positive trend regarding users' intentions to return to and recommend government websites - critical indicators of the online channel's success. Channel loyalty measures reflected in "likelihood to return" and "likelihood to recommend" scores both increased one point this quarter to 82 and 77 respectively.
With all this positive news comes a word of caution. Satisfaction scores for 41% of the 54 e-government websites measured this quarter and last quarter showed a negative change, while only 33 % experienced improvement and 17% remained steady.
These mixed results for the individual e-government websites may signal a leveling-off of website improvement, according to an accompanying analysis by ForeSee Results. According to Freed, this downturn for many government websites may be because users of these websites have grown accustomed to the level of convenience, ease and efficiency delivered by private sector e-commerce and e-business sites and are applying the same yardstick to e-government.
"E-government users are also online news, portals, retail and search users," said Freed. "These private-sector sites don't stand still - competition among them fuels continual improvement and evolution.. E-government sites must either adopt a similar pace of improvement or risk declining satisfaction ratings and defection to less convenient and cost-efficient channels."
"E-government sites face a demanding set of challenges in meeting citizen expectations," said Anne Kelly, CEO of the Federal Consulting Group in the Department of the Treasury and the government agent for the American Customer Satisfaction Index. "The private sector has far greater resources to devote to innovation and customer satisfaction. More e-government sites have had to make do with existing resources, leading to a decline of customer satisfaction in some cases. Even so, there are instances where e-government sites have managed to press ahead in spite of the considerable challenges they face."
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 the ACSI to be a standard metric for measuring citizen satisfaction. Over 55 Federal government agencies have used the ACSI to measure citizen satisfaction of more than 110 services and programs. The Index is produced by a partnership of the University of Michigan Business School, American Society for Quality (ASQ) and CFI Group, an international consulting firm. ForeSee Results sponsors the e-commerce, e-business and e-government indices. The Federal Consulting Group, a franchise within the Department of the Treasury, is the executive agent for the ACSI and the federal government.
Third Quarter 2004 Scores ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ID E-Government U.S. Website 9/04 Agency/Department/Office Score ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Portals/Department Main Sites ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NIST National Institute of NIST main website -- Standards and www.nist.gov Technology, Commerce 78 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA National Aeronautics NASA main website -- and Space www.nasa.gov Administration 77 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NARA National Archives & NARA Presidential Library Records Administration websites -- http://archives.gov/presidential_libraries/index.htm 77 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NLM National Library of NLM main website -- Medicine, HHS www.nlm.nih.gov 76 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SSA Social Security SSA main website -- Administration http://www.socialsecurity.gov/ 75 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GSA General Services FirstGov.gov website (Spanish) -- Administration http://firstgov.gov/Espanol/index.shtml 74 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- State Department of State Department of State main website -- www.state.gov 73 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GAO Government GAO main public website -- Accountability Office www.gao.gov 71 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GSA General Services FirstGov.gov website -- Administration www.firstgov.gov 70 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DOT Federal Aviation FAA main website -- Administration www.faa.gov 69 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- USPTO United States Patent & USPTO main website -- Trademark Office www.uspto.gov 66 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Treasury Department of the Treasury main website -- Treasury www.treasury.gov 66 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DOT Department of DOT main website -- Transportation www.dot.gov 59 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GSA General Services GSA main website -- Administration www.gsa.gov 56 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ID E-Government U.S. Website 9/04 Agency/Department/Office Score ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Information/News ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NLM National Library of MedlinePlus Main Website -- Medicine, National http://medlineplus.gov Institutes of Health, HHS 86 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NLM National Library of MedlinePlus en espanol -- Medicine, National http://medlineplus.gov/esp/ Institutes of Health, HHS 83 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OWH Office on Women's National Women's Health Information Health Center (NWHIC) main website -- www.4woman.gov 82 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BLS Bureau of Labor BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook Statistics http://www.bls.gov/oco/ 82 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NCI National Cancer National Cancer Institute main Institute, National website -- Institutes of Health, www.cancer.gov HHS 80 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NCJRS National Criminal NCJRS website -- Justice Reference www.ncjrs.org Service, Justice 79 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NIJ National Institute of NIJ main website -- Justice, Justice http://www.ojp.gov/nij 76 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NLM National Library of TOXNET main website -- Medicine, National http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov Institutes of Health, HHS 75 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NRCS Natural Resources NRCS website -- Conservation Service, http://www.nrcs.usda.gov Agriculture 74 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OJJDP Office of Juvenile OJJDP website -- Justice and http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org Delinquency Prevention, Justice 74 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NLM National Library of AIDSinfo main website -- Medicine, National http://aidsinfo.nih.gov/ Institutes of Health, HHS 74 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CDC Center for Disease CDC main website -- Control, HHS www.cdc.gov 74 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SSA Social Security SSA FAQ web site Administration http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov 74 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NIAID National Institute of NIAID main website -- Allergy and http://www.niaid.nih.gov Infectious Diseases, HHS 73 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FAS Foreign Agricultural FAS main website -- Service, Agriculture www.fas.usda.gov 72 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ERS Economic Research ERS main website -- Service, Agriculture www.ers.usda.gov 71 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NASS National Agricultural NASS main website -- Statistics Service, http://www.usda.gov/nass Agriculture 70 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NARA National Archives & NARA main public website -- Records www.archives.gov Administration 69 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IIP International IIP main website -- Information Programs, http://usinfo.state.gov 69 State ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BJA Bureau of Justice BJA main website -- Assistance, Justice http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA 69 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- USDA National Agricultural NAL main website -- Library, Agriculture www.nal.usda.gov 69 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FS Forest Service, Forest Service main website -- Agriculture http://www.fs.fed.us 68 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS Department of State US Embassy, Belgium main website -- http://www.usembassy.be/main.html 68 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FSIS Food Safety and FSIS main website -- Inspection Service, www.fsis.usda.gov Agriculture 67 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FSA Farm Service Agency, FSA main website -- Agriculture www.fsa.usda.gov 66 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS Department of State US Embassy, Belgium website (French)-- http://www.usembassy.be/fr/fr.main.html 65 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS Department of State US Embassy, Belgium website (Dutch) -- http://www.usembassy.be/nl/nl.main.html 65 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS Department of State Student website -- http://future.state.gov 63 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RD Rural Development, Rural Development main website -- Agriculture http://www.rurdev.usda.gov 62 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ESA Employment Standards ESA main website -- Administration, Labor www.union-reports.dol.gov 60 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CSREES Cooperative State CSREES main website -- Research, Education, http://www.csrees.usda.gov and Extension Service, Agriculture 60 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NARA National Archives & NARA AAD - Access to Archival Records Databases -- Administration http://aad.archives.gov/aad/title_list.jsp 59 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ID E-Government U.S. Website 9/04 Agency/Department/Office Score ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Commerce Websites ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mint United States Online Catalog -- Mint, Treasury http://catalog.usmint.gov 80 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SSA Social Security SSA Retirement Planner -- Administration http://www.socialsecurity.gov/r&m1.htm 77 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GSA General Services GSA Global Supply website -- Administration https://www.globalsupply.gsa.gov 65 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GSA General Services GSA Advantage website -- Administration https://www.gsaadvantage.gov 63 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PBGC Pension Benefit Guaranty PBGC main website -- Corporation http://www.pbgc.gov 61 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ID E-Government U.S. Website 9/04 Agency/Department/Office Score ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Recruitment/Careers Websites ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CIA Central Intelligence Recruitment website -- Agency http://www.cia.gov/employment 79 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OPM Office of Personnel Recruitment website -- Management www.usajobs.opm.gov 76 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS Department of State Recruitment website -- www.careers.state.gov 76 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Quelle: Business Wire, 21.09.2004
