The survey, called Leadership in Customer Service: New Expectations, New Experiences, lists e-government service delivery in 22 countries. This year, Canada is followed by the United States, Denmark, Singapore and Australia. The study, Accenture's sixth annual report on government service delivery, differs from the previous five by including leadership in delivering true customer service — the value brought to citizens through multiple channels.
The study focused on two components. The first was a leadership assessment of the overall service maturity of 22 national governments in North America, Europe and Asia, and the second was a survey of 9,000 adults in the same 22 countries to uncover their perceptions and customer experiences interacting with their government on-line.
Accenture — a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company — noted that governments around the world have invested billions of dollars moving services and information resources on-line, but are still struggling to meet citizens' growing expectations for better customer service.
Accenture says it focused on four aspects of service delivery: a citizen-centred perspective, cohesive multi-channel services, fluid cross-government services, and communications and education.
The study found that while e-government offerings across the board are well advanced, with an average service maturity breadth of 91 per cent, all countries have room for improvement.
The overall average customer service maturity score — which measures four aspects of service delivery, including how well governments are delivering service across multiple channels — was just 39 per cent. Only Canada has an overall customer service maturity score of more than 50 per cent.
"Canada continues to set the bar in government service delivery for the rest of the world," Accenture's Alden Cuddihey said in a statement.
But, he added, "despite being a leader, there are still lessons to be learned from the rest of the world, areas for advancement, and opportunities to reach even more Canadians through e-government services. "
While most citizens prefer a number of different methods of communicating with governments, the survey found that they continue to rely on more traditional, off-line channels. Even though some countries are Internet-savvy and familiar with on-line government, the telephone continues to be the predominant means citizens use to communicate with government agencies.
Over the past 12 months, 57 per cent of respondents had used the telephone to interact with government, as opposed to only 22 per cent who had used the Internet.
But if the telephone is still the most popular medium, it is ranked as the least easy form of communication across all countries surveyed.
"This year's research shows that governments cannot afford to invest all of their effort and resources in developing the on-line channel alone to keep pace with citizen demands," Accenture's Marty Cole said. "The entire government organization must become focused on delivering services to citizens that are tailored to their needs and circumstances."
In fact, all countries experienced a drop from previous years' overall e-government maturity scores, which measured the level to which a government has developed an on-line presence and were solely based on the Accenture researchers' evaluations of countries' e-government programs.
Countries that fared worse this year tended to be those with an emphasis solely on the e-government aspects of their service delivery programs. Governments that continued incremental improvements in e-government proved unlikely to yield significant boosts to maturity.
The study also stated that that while most people are willing to embrace a new generation of services, governments are failing to deliver them properly. For example, a majority of citizens (55 per cent) believe government is being effective when it acts as a single, seamless entity that can remember all of the details of a citizen's previous contact.
However, an average of only 24 per cent of citizens across all countries reported the government actually being able to do so. For Canada, 70 per cent of the respondents claimed that the government had forgotten at least some details of their previous transactions.
In Britain, only 38 per cent said the government remembered all details of a previous contact. That score was the highest in the survey.
To conduct the study, Accenture researchers attempted to fulfill service needs that might typically be provided by a national government in 22 countries. They assessed Web sites of national government agencies to determine the breadth of services, and the cohesiveness across multiple channels, as well as the extent and sophistication of governments' efforts at outreach and education.
In total, the researchers investigated 177 national government services across 12 major service sectors.
The 22 governments included Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The research was conducted in January.
Autor: Jack Kapica
Quelle: Globetechnology, 06.04.2005
