Customer Service Standards -- Social Security

Customer Service Performance Standards--Social Security
Administration

BACKGROUND

The scale of the Social Security Administration's (SSA's) contact with
the public is huge. It administers Old-Age, Survivors and Disability
Insurance; Supplemental Security Income; and the Part B-Black Lung
program. It pays over $300 billion annually to 47 million beneficiaries,
and it maintains earnings records for 131 million taxpayers.

SSA has 1,300 field offices and gets 60 million 1-800 calls per year,
certainly one of the world's largest 1-800 services. The SSA estimates a
26 percent increase in workload by 2005.[Endnote 1] This is due
primarily to the population maturing. Disability claims are a trouble
spot. The process is slow, and SSA has a backlog of disability claims,
hearings, and appeals. SSA acknowledges the need for major improvement
in disability insurance administration.[Endnote 2]

A 1993 Health and Human Services Inspector General's (IG's) report on
overall SSA services shows declining customer satisfaction for the
fourth year in a row.  The IG reports longer waiting times in offices.
It links dissatisfaction among 1-800 callers to the number of attempts
needed to get through.[Endnote 3]

To deal with a growing workload and backlogs, SSA is planning major
automation improvements. It also plans on completing a greater
percentage of the work at the first point of public contact and
enhancing its telephone answering capacity.[Endnote 4]

NEED FOR CHANGE

SSA has a strong customer orientation, but it has some service problems
and its already formidable task is growing. The SSA mission statement
says it will administer its programs in an equitable, effective, and
caring manner. The SSA strategic plan sets out three overall goals that
emphasize the public and its employees.[Endnote 5]

--Serve the public with compassion, courtesy, consideration, efficiency,
and accuracy.

--Protect trust funds and instill public confidence.

--Maintain a motivated work force.

The plan also details seven Service Delivery Goals and an extensive list
of 34 supporting objectives, ranging from issuing a social security
number orally within 24 hours to accuracy in trust fund outlays.  The
goals and objectives are based in large part on the judgment of SSA
management, without the benefit of direct customer input. Appropriately,
the objectives do seek to cover the full range of SSA tasks.

The strategic plan proposes the objectives to be reached by the year
2005. There are no interim objectives, so measuring progress between now
and then will be difficult. On the other hand, some of the objectives
are within reach today, and major initiatives are under way to address
those problems that would prevent SSA from achieving some of the
objectives.

The actions that follow build on the important baseline established by
the strategic plan, and go on to address some of the shortcomings of the
plan, which are well understood by SSA management.


Endnotes

1. See U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security
Administration (SSA), The Social Security Strategic Plan (Baltimore, MD,
September 1991).

2. See U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security
Administration, Social Security Administration Annual Financial
Statement for Fiscal Year 1992 (Baltimore, MD, February 1992).

3. See U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the
Inspector General, Social Security Client Satisfaction: Fiscal Year 1993
(Washington, D.C., April 1992).

4. See SSA, The Social Security Strategic Plan.

5. Ibid.