1 / 37

USA Services Making the Federal Government more Citizen-Centric Citizen Services Conference October 12, 2004

USA Services Making the Federal Government more Citizen-Centric Citizen Services Conference October 12, 2004. Martha Dorris Deputy Associate Administrator Office of Citizen Services and Communications General Services Administration. Office of Citizen Services & Communications.

sage
Download Presentation

USA Services Making the Federal Government more Citizen-Centric Citizen Services Conference October 12, 2004

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. USA ServicesMaking the Federal Government more Citizen-CentricCitizen Services ConferenceOctober 12, 2004 Martha Dorris Deputy Associate Administrator Office of Citizen Services and Communications General Services Administration

  2. Office of Citizen Services & Communications • Established in July 2002 • By OMB for E-Gov Strategy execution • Enable Federal agencies to become more citizen-centric by providing answers to citizens that are timely, accurate and responsive. • Assist Federal government web sites to be more citizen-centric and user-friendly

  3. USA Services Vision • Presidential E-Gov Initiative • Make it easy for citizens to get timely, accurate • answers to their questions about government • information and services • Facilitate agency collaboration to share data, • benchmark citizen services, set performance • metrics, and share best practices

  4. USA Services Challenge: USA is a pluralistic society • American population – nearly 300 million • All walks of life; all manner of life experiences • Many special needs: seniors, kids, businesses • “New” Americans speak a variety of languages

  5. USA Services Challenge: “Department of Obscurity” • “Name one cabinet-level department of our • government…” (60% of Americans can’t) • “Name more than 5 cabinet-level departments • of our government…” (only 4% of Americans can) • And the name-recognition “winner” is… • OMB (with 0% recognition)

  6. USA Services Solution: • Present a “front door” for citizens • Offer information and services through a variety of channels: web, phone, e-mail, and publications • Help all Federal agencies be responsive to citizen inquiries

  7. USA Services Services for Citizens We answer citizen questions about the federal government. • Web: FirstGov.gov • Phone: 1-800-FED-INFO • E-mail: via FirstGov.gov • Publications: Pueblo, Colorado 81009

  8. USA Services….Online • FirstGov.gov • The Official Portal to the • U.S. Government • Pulls together millions • of federal and state web • pages • 17 million page views • per month

  9. USA Services….Online FirstGov en Español • 29 million people in the USA speak • Spanish at home today • We link to 125,000 government pages in • Spanish • Spanish federal pages are linked, but so are • 42 state websites in Spanish, plus Wash, DC, • Puerto Rico and many local government • websites • We also link to government pages in 25 other • languages….from Armenian to Vietnamese

  10. USA Services….Online FirstGov.gov from Armenian to Vietnamese….”

  11. USA Services….E-mail • Accept and respond to e-mail • in English and Spanish • Started e-mail in April 2003 • Expect 100,000 e-mails this year • Answer 99% within two business • days • Current average time to respond: • 6 hours

  12. USA Services News flash: Not all citizens want to get their information online! Citizen from Virginia: “Whenever you want the government to answer a question, the response (if you can actually talk toanyone) is ‘check our website.’ Can’t anyone answer a question? It’s lazy and non-responsive for a government that is supposed to be the people’s.”

  13. USA Services • News flash: • Not all citizens want to get their information online! • PEW Internet & American Life Project Report, issued May 2004: • “A plurality of Americans who contact government do so via the telephone (42%). Using a government website is the second most frequent approach (29%)…..” • When Americans were asked what way they preferred to contact government, telephone was again the top choice: 40% chose phones; 24% chose the web.

  14. USA Services….by Phone • National Contact Center • 1 (800) FED-INFO • Trained agents answer • questions about the Federal • Government in English and • Spanish. • Available 8am to 8pm (M-F) • Knowledgebase available • online

  15. USA Services….by Print • Consumer Information Catalog • Pueblo, Colorado 81009 • Hundreds of free or low-cost federal • publications • Full text available online • Topics include health, federal benefits, money, housing, childcare, employment, small business, education, nutrition, cars travel, and more

  16. USA Services: What do Citizens Want to Know? • Government benefits: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid • Loans and grants: student, small business • Buying government surplus properties • Federal programs in Spanish and other languages • Small business assistance • Passports and visas • Government jobs: how to apply • Immigration status and information • Money issues: taxes, investments, savings and credit

  17. USA Services Figuring Out What Citizens Want • Analysis of their questions • Usability testing • Constant customer satisfaction surveys

  18. USA Services Surveys -- 2004 • ACSI satisfaction survey on ordering print publication • -- ease of ordering: score of 93 • -- agent courtesy & professionalism: score of 93 • NCC internal survey: 97% of users would call again for help

  19. USA Services • ACSI pop-up survey on FirstGov.gov: • -- consistently scores among the top in • Federal websites • And from September 2004, the Brown University Survey Results: • With a score of 88 out of 100, FirstGov.gov was rated the • #1 government website! • The next highest score was 65 out of 100. • Brown University evaluated 1,629 government websites • before they decided FirstGov.gov was #1.

  20. USA Services Summary of Public Contacts Channel FY 2004 . FirstGov.gov page views 204,000,000 Other OCSC Webpage views 27,394,000 Print publications 5,129,000 Toll-free telephone calls 1,500,000 Assisted Telephone Calls 3,830,000 E-mail (all programs) 97,000 ListServ emails 1,029,000 Total Contacts242,979,000

  21. USA Services Help Federal Agencies be responsive to citizen inquiries

  22. USA Services for Agencies Misdirected Inquiries – No cost • We handle your “misdirected” phone and e-mail inquiries from the public Contact Center Solutions • Tier 1 Service Offering - Reimbursable • New FirstContact contract vehicle for contact center solutions Publication Distribution – Reimbursable

  23. USA Services’ 29 Partners – October 2004 Department of Labor National Archives and Records Admin. National Aeronautics & Space Admin. National Science Foundation Nuclear Regulatory Commission Recreation One Stop SAFECOM (Homeland Security) Small Business Administration Smithsonian Institute Social Security Administration Department of State Department of Transportation Department of the Treasury Department of Veterans Affairs U.S. Postal Service Agency for Int’l Development Department of Agriculture Business Gateway Department of Commerce Department of Education Department of Energy Environmental Protection Agency General Services Administration GovBenefits.gov Grants.gov Health and Human Services Housing and Urban Development Department of the Interior Department of Justice

  24. What is FirstContact • Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) • Firm Fixed Price • Performance based • Managed by USA Services • 5 experienced, pre-qualified solution partners

  25. Who are the solution partners? • Aspen Systems Corporation (Rockville, MD) www.aspensys.com • Datatrac Information Services, Inc. (Richardson, TX) www.datatrac-dc.com • ICT Group (Newtown, PA) www. itcgroup.com • Pearson Government Solutions (Arlington, VA) www.pearsongov.com • Teletech Government Solutions (Englewood, CO) www.teletech.com

  26. Why are we doing this? • Supports USA Services’ vision of: • Providing easy access to information and services • Ensure timely, consistent, and accurate responses to citizen inquiries • Supports USA Services’ goals of: • Improve customer service to citizens across the Federal Government • Reduce agency costs in labor and information technology for citizen inquiry services

  27. Benefits to you! • Only Government contract for contact centers solutions • Access to state-of-the-art solution providers for a small investment • Sufficient competition to ensure good prices and performance. • Task Orders are not protestable. • Flexible pricing structure to meet diverse agency requirements.

  28. Benefits to you! (continued) • Get a contractor on board in a short period of time • Agencies can retain COTR functions on Task Orders • Access to GSA experts who facilitate the process and partner with you to ensure that your contact center services are best in class • Support the Presidents Management Agenda • Improve E-Gov Scorecard

  29. Email and Telephone 5 levels of CSR skills Multi-language support Emergency response and 24 X 7 support available Assistance with forms and applications Fulfillment & order intake Customer feedback & satisfaction surveys Automated Services Traditional IVR and voice recognition/text to speech technologies Self-service answers to FAQs Routing calls to most appropriate destination Automated fax-back service Web Services Hosted FAQ services to provide answers to FAQs Web text chat Appointment scheduling Contact Center Services

  30. New FY 05 Initiative • Benchmark citizen service activities • Establish customer service standards for the Federal Government • Develop service performance metrics • Here is our strategy…..…….

  31. Strategy for Improving Agency Citizen Customer Service How do agencies offer citizen contact? How agencies do it? How does the public want to contact govt.? BDR Implementation Research How should agencies do it? How do others do it and who does it best? Standards Benchmarking

  32. USA Services Marketing

  33. Marketing USA Services to Citizens • Print Ads • 10,000 magazines and newspapers • Promotes FirstGov.gov and • 1-800-FED-INFO • “GET OUT OF LINE” (current print ad)

  34. Marketing USA Services to Citizens • FY2003 - 2004 • Television PSA • “In the Pink” • $9.4 million in • free air time

  35. Marketing USA Services to Citizens Print Ads “Uncle Sam” (new print ad)

  36. Marketing USA Services to Citizens IRS Refund Envelopes

  37. What can you do ? • Get involved with USA Services • Become a customer service champion in your agency • Be responsive to the citizen • Listen to the citizen

More Related