Establish Policy for Quality of Public Services

Establish an overall policy for the quality of federal services
delivered to the public.

And initiate customer service programs in all agencies that provide
services directly to the public.


The President should issue an Executive Order that would establish this
overall standard for quality in services to the public: Customer
services equal to the best in business.

The Executive Order would state that the following principles govern the
provision of customer services:

--Survey customers frequently to find out what kind and quality of
services they want.

--Post service standards and results measured against them.

--Benchmark performance against the best in business.

--Provide choices in both source of service and delivery means.

--Make information, services, and complaint systems easily accessible.

--Provide redress for poor services.

--Handle inquiries and deliver services with courtesy.

--Provide pleasant surroundings for customers.

The Executive Order would recommend that all federal agencies that
deliver services directly to the public undertake the following actions:

--Immediately identify who their customers are.

-Survey their customers on services and results desired and on
satisfaction with existing services.

--Survey front-line employees on barriers to, and ideas for, matching
the best in business.

--Within six months, report results on these three steps to the
President.

--Within one year, publish a customer service plan that can be readily
understood by their customers.

The required customer service plans would include at least initial
customer service standards. Under these plans, customer satisfaction
would be sampled often during the year and used as a primary criterion
in judging the performance of agency management and in making resource
allocations. To support the plan, agencies would provide training needed
by employees.  For example, front-line employees handling inquires would
learn customer service skills, and managers would learn to use
results-oriented, customer satisfaction information.

These policies and supporting actions represent a major initiative to
put government's focus on people, both the public and front-line
employees. Moreover, several of the recommended principles of customer
service seek to make government agencies accountable to the public for
the quality of the service provided.

To begin with, publishing standards and actual performance results
creates a sense of accountability among employees. These results, along
with surveys of customer satisfaction, provide a direct basis for
judging management and employee performance. In addition, redress by way
of an apology and an explanation can be given when individuals are
treated poorly, and in some cases the government will be able to put
things right by, for example, forgiving penalties or paying interest.

On a broader scale, customer satisfaction can be used as a basis for
changing resource allocations. Note that customer satisfaction must
measure many aspects of the service experience, but especially results.
For instance, when the government runs employee service centers, we need
to ask "Did a customer get a job, and at what pay level?" Based on this
type of satisfaction measurement, for example, funding might be shifted
among service centers in order to deal with problems, or workloads
shifted to the best performing locations to improve service within an
area. And when the public can actually exercise a choice to obtain a
service elsewhere, competition