E-Government Citizen Satisfaction Declines Third Straight Quarter
E-Government Still Outperforms Overall Government Despite Drop, According to ACSI-Partner ForeSee Results
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (December 17, 2007) – Citizen satisfaction with e-government slips for a third straight quarter, according to the fourth quarter report of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index. The cross-departmental measure of over 100 federal websites fell 0.5 percent to 72.9 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale, the Index’s lowest score since the second quarter of 2005.
“The e-government sector reflects some of the challenges faced by the e-business sector, which was also down this year,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. “There haven’t been any widespread innovations in these sectors that help diverse segments of site visitors navigate through vast amounts of information quickly and easily. Private sector e-commerce, on the other hand, is doing a better job of innovating and setting higher standards for the web experience, and ultimately that influences citizens’ perceptions of their e-government experiences as well.”
With the decline in satisfaction, e-government is losing ground to its private sector counterparts. E-business scored 75.2 in its annual ACSI measure in the second quarter (down 1.7 percent over last year), and e-commerce scored 80 (up 0.5 percent) in the fourth quarter report.
The good news is that despite declining scores for e-government, satisfaction with federal online services still outperforms satisfaction with the overall federal government by a considerable margin. E-government scored 8 percent higher than overall federal government, which scored 67.8 on the ACSI’s annual study of federal government satisfaction released today. The latest ACSI data supports the importance of the web in delivering a satisfying interaction with the government: the subset of citizens who used the web as part of their interaction with the government has a satisfaction score of 73.4.
“The web continues to be a preferred channel for citizen interaction with the government,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. “That’s no reason to let up on funding investments to improve the web experience. On the contrary, the decline in online satisfaction shows that government may be losing an opportunity to get the most out of its most efficient channel and to enhance citizen perceptions of the service government is providing.”
Top performing government websites, those that score 80 or higher, perform on par with the private sector top performers. Health-related sites make up half of the government sector top-performers, showing that the federal government has succeeded in becoming a credible source of health information online. The Social Security Administration continues to lead all e-government websites with two top-performing sites: Internet Social Security Benefits Application (88) and Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs (87).
The ACSI e-government study shows that citizens who are happier with the online experience are more likely to use the site again, recommend it to others and choose it over costlier phone or in-person contact channels. Scores for “likelihood to return to the site” and “likelihood to use the site as a primary resource” score 17% and 16% higher, respectively, for the sites with top satisfaction scores. “Likelihood to recommend the site” is 21% higher for the top 20% of sites by satisfaction score compared to the bottom 20%.
“Improving satisfaction with federal websites will drive more citizens to use the channel, which has the beneficial effect of making them more satisfied with government overall,” said Claes Fornell, founder of ACSI at the University of Michigan. “The benefits of improving customer satisfaction accrue in the long run, so government should take action today to turnaround this distressing e-government trend and to leverage the potential of the Web to improve the quality of service to citizens.”
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 ACSI to be a standard metric for measuring citizen satisfaction. Over 100 Federal government agencies have used ACSI to measure citizen satisfaction of more than 200 services and programs. The Index is produced by the University of Michigan, in partnership with the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and CFI Group, an international consulting firm. ForeSee Results sponsors the e-commerce, e-business, and e-government indexes.
ABOUT FORESEE RESULTS, INC.
ForeSee Results is the market leader in online customer satisfaction measurement and management and specializes in converting satisfaction data into user-driven web development strategies. Using the methodology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), ForeSee Results has created a model that scientifically quantifies the elements that drive online customer satisfaction and predicts future behaviors, including the likelihood to return to the site or recommend the site to others. A sponsor of the ACSI e-government, e-business, and e-retail reports, ForeSee Results, a privately held company located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, can be found online at www.ForeSeeResults.com.
ABOUT THE FEDERAL CONSULTING GROUP
The Federal Consulting Group, a franchise of the Department of the Treasury, serves as the executive agent in the government for the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), and holds generic clearance from the Office of Management and Budget that enables agencies to utilize ACSI without having to obtain a separate clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act to conduct customer satisfaction surveys. Agencies can participate in the ACSI through an arrangement between the Federal Consulting Group and ForeSee Results.