The study was a leadership assessment of the overall service maturity of 22 national governments in North America, Europe and Asia based on the breadth and depth of the e-government services they offer, as well as leadership assessments along several key categories. The company also surveyed 9,000 adults in the same 22 countries to uncover their perceptions and customer experiences interacting with their government online, in person or via phone. 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 to realise the broader goal of leadership in customer service. In fact the overall average customer service maturity score – which measures four key 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.
The citizen survey found that while most citizens prefer a number of different methods of communicating with governments, they continue to rely on more traditional, offline channels. Despite the relative internet savvy and familiarity with online government in some countries, the telephone continues to be the predominant means citizens use to communicate with government. 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. Yet despite its popularity, the telephone is consistently ranked as the least easy form of communication across all countries surveyed.
All countries experienced a drop from previous years’ overall e-government maturity scores, which measured the level to which a government has developed an online presence. For the fifth consecutive year, Canada ranked first out of the 22 countries surveyed in maturity, followed by the United States, Denmark, Singapore and Australia.
Countries that fared worse this year tended to be those with an emphasis on solely the e-government aspects of their service delivery programmes. A look at e-government programmes across the globe shows that continued incremental improvements in this area are unlikely to yield significant boosts to maturity.
The study also found that while most citizens are eager to embrace a new generation of services, governments’ are falling short on their ability to deliver them. 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. In the United Kingdom, which scored highest in this category, only 38 per cent said the government remembered all details of a previous contact. Even in Canada, which ranked number one in overall maturity ratings this year, 70 per cent of the respondents claimed that the government had forgotten at least some details of their previous transactions.
Autor: John Tilak
Quelle: DMeurope, 07.04.2005
