In the latest ACSI, eight of the ten most highly-rated sites are run by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and one of the two remaining ones is a non-NIH health-related site. “E-government sites face many challenges to increasing and even maintaining satisfaction scores, as citizens’ standards rise due to positive private sector online experiences,” said Dr. Claes Fornell, Director of the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross Business School. “Clearly, the health care sector is one where the public sector is exhibiting leadership.”
“What’s going on with government health sites is remarkable,” said Larry Freed, an online satisfaction expert and CEO of ForeSee Results, which sponsors the federal e-government ACSI. “The NIH has embraced customer satisfaction as an enterprise-wide performance benchmark, evidence of their commitment to meeting citizens’ needs and exceeding their expectations.” The aggregate score for NIH sites in this benchmark outperforms the aggregate e-government score by 8 percent.
Freed said that NIH’s success is driven by several factors—but a key factor is that they have made user evaluation of their sites a primary metric. The NIH sites network to share best practices, but the site managers understand that a “one size fits all” approach won’t work, especially given the varied audiences they serve.
"Our constituency is multifaceted, including patients and their families and friends, health professionals, scientist/researchers, advocates, and others,” said Sue Feldman, Senior Program Analyst, Web Analytics for the National Cancer Institute, the highest scoring e-government portal and one of the sites in the top ten. “Segmenting the data allows us to evaluate how we can best serve these different audiences."
Rounding out the top-ten is the Pueblo, Colorado consumer information site (www.pueblo.gsa.gov)—a site that does well not because it has fancy bells and whistles but because it is matched to its audiences’ desire for simple, quick access to very specific informational materials.
Compared to private sector categories, e-government performance is mixed. E-Government portals and department main sites, with an aggregate score of 72.6, outperform private sector portals (71) by a small margin. In the information/news category, the private sector is in the lead by 3%, with an aggregate of 75 versus e-government’s aggregate score of 72.3 this quarter. In e-commerce, a category where e-government is in its infancy, the private sector aggregate score of 78.6 is a full 10 percent above the e-government score of 71.3.
Even with its very modest increase this quarter, the Index shows promise, according to Freed. In the aggregate, the Index showed slight improvements in the areas most critical to driving users’ satisfaction and likelihood to continue to use the online channel.
Navigation and search, which tend to have the largest impact on federal site-users’ satisfaction, have long been a relatively weak spot for most government sites—but Freed said the 1.1 percent improvement in navigation and 1.3 percent increase in search is a muted but encouraging sign.
“These are not huge increases, but even a small improvement is a good sign,” said Freed. “Navigation and search are absolutely critical factors to the success of almost all government websites—the things that users tend to think the sites do least well but that also matter most. For e-government to succeed on a broad scale, agencies really need to increase their focus on these areas and pick up the pace.”
"It's exciting that 14 new agencies are in the American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Government benchmark this quarter,” said Anne Kelly, CEO/Director, Federal Consulting Group. “This shows that more federal agencies are putting their customers first."
Quelle: CRM Today, 17.06.2005
