On the Road to Satisfaction: Using the Canadian Common Measurements Tool to Measure Satisfaction with Government Services

Customer satisfaction measurement is a key focus for public service delivery and should not be relegated to an occasional one-off research task but incorporated in an ongoing journey for continuous service improvement. Measurement tools and techniques can only work if there is a prerequisite organisational cultural commitment in place. It has to be championed from the top, with chief executives openly committed to regular customer satisfaction measurement.

Audit Commission, United Kingdom - Archive

Archived articles and resources about audit commissions reviewing egovernement activities in the United Kingdom.

Better Practice Guidance for Government Contact Centres, United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about best practice for government contact centres.

Citizen centric service - United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about the provision of citizen centric service by government in the United Kingdom.

Citizen centric service / Customer relationship management in eGovernment - Archive

Resources about customer centric service and customer relationship management relating to online service delivery by government.

Citizen Centric Services - United States - Archive

Articles and resources about trends and issues relating to citizen centric services in the United States.

Co-Production by Design – embracing digital society makes for smarter services - Serve You Right, Melbourne, September 2011

Paper presented by Dr Steve Hodgkinson - Research Director IT – Asia/Pacific Ovum, at the Serve You Right Conference, Melbourne, September 2011. The modern digital economy requires new behaviours from citizens, industry partners, peer agencies and governments to inspire economic, social and environmental sustainability, nurture digital society initiatives, collaborate to pool thinking and resources and leverage proven platforms and solutions.

Customer Satisfaction - recent updates in measurement and performance across all channels - Serve You Right, Melbourne, September 2011

Presentation by Paul van Veen, Customer Service Benchmarking Australia (CSBA) at the Serve You Right Conference, Melbourne, September 15-16,2011. Provides an overview of: What to look for in customer service measures; The overall service improvement model; Customer satisfaction measures; Understand current performance; Key points for successful customer satisfaction measurement.

e-Citizen Charter (e-Citizen Programme)

The aim of the Dutch e-Government policy is to improve information exchange, service delivery and interactive participation by introducing a new partnership between citizen and government. This is to be achieved by giving more responsibility and choice to citizens. As far as the Dutch cabinet is concerned, the required empowerment is being supported by ICTs. To help citizens in their new role, the e-Citizen Programme has developed an instrument: the so called e-Citizen Charter.

Getting Serious on Client Service: An IPAA Policy Discussion Paper

Public sectors worldwide are facing unprecedented pressures to deliver more effective, efficient and responsive public programs. This is in the face of a combination of social, economic and global challenges. The Information and Communication Technology revolution is rapidly changing how society operates and how services are delivered and critiqued. Many of the "easy wins" have already been made in delivering service improvement, making it harder for governments at all levels to find significant future enhancements. This is coupled with rising public expectations regarding public service delivery notwithstanding fiscal constraints and crises in most advanced countries. This paper explores the issue of how to further improve public sector service delivery in spite of these challenges. In particular the issue of customer service in the tax-payer subsidised general government sector is examined from three perspectives.

New Zealand Jurisdictional Update - Serve You Right, Melbourne, September 2011

Paper presented by Joy Hippolite, Senior Adviser, State Services Commission (New Zealand), at the Serve You Right Conference, Melbourne, September 15-16, 2011. Examines Kiwis Count, common measurements tool and understanding the srivers of satisfaction with services delivered online

Putting People at the Centre - Contents

Contents page for the eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre.

Putting People at the Centre - Creating a Framework for Ongoing Reform within Government

eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010. Strategies - Responding to issues holistically across government; Building capabilities within agencies; Effective sharing of resources. The development of citizen-centred services as part of eGovernment will inevitably involve changes to the way government works.

Putting People at the Centre - Executive Summary

Executive summary of the eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010.

Putting People at the Centre - Introduction

Introduction to the eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre.

Putting People at the Centre - Ministers' Message

Ministers' message regarding the eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre.

Putting People at the Centre - Providing Better Community Engagement and More Effective Democracy

The eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre outlined strategies to provide better community engagement and more effective democracy include giving people access to competing source of information and analysis, creating opportunities for community consultation and debate, inproving opportunities for policy discussion, and protecting personal privacy.

Putting People at the Centre - Substantially Improving Support and Services to Citizens

The eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre providing a citizen focussed vision for e-Government.

Putting People at the Centre - Using Innovation in Finding New Opportunities

The eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre saw e-Government as a commitment to greater innovation - in the use of new information networks and communications technology, in new ways of working and in new partnerships outside government.

Putting People at the Centre: Our e-Government Vision - Media Release

The eGovernment vision of the Victorian Labor government 1999 - 2010 - Putting People at the Centre was launched by the then Premier on 26 March 2002.

Transformational Government

Chief Information Officer Council, Cabinet Office. Information related to the UK government's Transformation strategy to make to make access to information and services easier for citizens and businesses.

USA Services

Mission: To present citizens with a single point of reference for government, allowing them to receive accurate, timely and consistent answers and information in both English and Spanish via their preferred means of communication.

They have developed a six step approach to improving agency citizen services and establishing government-wide citizen service standards.

Which agency's websites are outscoring Amazon for customer satisfaction?

By Alice Lipowicz. Federal Computer Week, May 10, 2012. "Customer satisfaction scores for two websites run by the Social Security Administration are the highest in the federal government and even surpass those of the highest-scoring online retailer, Amazon.com, according to new market research. Amazon historically has led the pack in pleasing customers online with a published score of 89 on the 100-point American Customer Satisfaction Index, according to Larry Freed, president of ForeSee Results Inc. research firm. But the SSA is doing Amazon one better..."

Colorado Eyes New CRM Model for Government

By Noelle Knell. Government Technology, May 8, 2012. "Colorado officials report that existing IT systems are about 10 years old. More than 60 percent of IT systems are more than seven years old. The Colorado Office of Information Technology, led by CIO Kristin Russell, views the aging infrastructure as an opportunity to introduce a new government service delivery model. Russell and her team are looking to bring the benefits of private-sector customer relationship management (CRM) to government. With a background that includes positions with Oracle and Sun Microsystems, Russell feels a CRM-style solution can save money by removing redundant systems and services, encourage innovation and provide better service to citizens..."

Stratford Institute Citizen App Challenge

Brainmaven Inc. Got an idea for a Citizen-App? Post your idea and start collaborating with others.

The Stratford Institute for Digital Media Invites Canadians to Participate in the Citizen-App Challenge

Toronto, Ontario - Marketwire, 4 May 2012. "Having released the first-ever evaluation of provincial and territorial open government and egovernment initiatives, the Stratford Institute for Digital Media, in partnership with Brainmaven, turns to Canadian citizens to participate in the Citizen-App Challenge. Visit egov.brainmaven.com to share ideas for apps that draw on government data to provide new and useful services. Top voted ideas will be presented to the federal Advisory Panel on Open Government..."

Customer Service Act Is Good News for Citizens and Employees

Posted, by Candi Harrison. Governing People, May 1, 2012. "Good news! The Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act, H.R. 538 has passed out of a House committee and is moving forward. What? You’ve never heard of the Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act? Oh, my. Well, let me tell you about it because this law would be great news for public servants and citizens alike. The Act would add support and permanence to President Obama's Executive Order on customer service. What I like most is that it calls for agencies to credit and reward employees for great customer service. Bingo! The Act legitimizes 'customer service' as an organizational value; and it recognizes that great customer service depends on government employees who know their customers, care about what they want and need, and go the extra mile to make sure they get it..."

Customer Service Bill Is Resurrected

By: John M. Kamensky. IBM Center for the Business of Government, Wednesday, April 25th, 2012. "Will feds soon be asking their customers if they are satisfied with the service they’ve received? Following the customer service initiatives launched by Gore’s reinventing government team in the 1990s, the federal government has waxed and waned on the importance of customer service in the course of serving the public. Now that citizen satisfaction with government services is under 20 percent, a new law may turbo charge the emphasis if it is passed, since it would tie customer service to employees’ performance ratings..."

Accenture Survey Finds Governments Need to Address Growing Interests of 'Digital Citizens'

Arlington, Va. --(Business Wire)-- April 25, 2012. "Nearly half (44 percent) of 1,400 citizens surveyed in seven countries -- Australia, France, Germany, India, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom -- believe that interacting with their government is easy, and almost one-third (31 percent) say it's actually easier to access services from the government than private-sector companies, according to a new survey from Accenture. These same "digital citizens," however, want increased access to public services and are more inclined to use digital channels, including online and mobile resources, to conduct routine government business. In fact, more than 70 percent of the survey respondents already use the Internet for submitting and tracking government forms and payments and more than half (53 percent) say they want to use more online channels in the future..."

The Accenture Digital Citizen Pulse Survey and the Future of Government Operations

Accenture, 2012. "The majority of people responding to a new Accenture survey say they would use digital services if offered by government, especially for routine transactions. And over half want to conduct all their government business digitally in the future. The biggest challenge for government is not catching up with the private sector—it’s giving digital citizens what they want while using digital channels to improve public value. Digital citizens are empowered in a way that people in previous generations never were. They can initiate and dictate the dynamics of the citizen-to-government relationship in a whole new paradigm. As such, one aspect of successful, sustainable digital government is to align initiatives with the intent, expectations and preferences of digital citizens..."

Open Public Services 2012 - in pdf format (1015kb)

(This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). UK Cabinet Office, 2012. "... To improve quality for all, and particularly for the most vulnerable, we are determined to open up the provision of the public services and target funding at the most disadvantaged. The open public services agenda can make a dramatic difference by treating citizens as grown-ups – by giving them greater choice and control; genuine information on outcomes; and a stronger role for their communities. Improvements will be driven by putting the needs of citizens before producer interest, by using data transparency to put real information in people’s hands, and by decentralising power to ensure that public service providers are accountable to the people that use them rather than to centralised bureaucracies. This means replacing top-down monopolies with open networks in which diverse and innovative providers compete to provide the best and most efficient services for the public. It means re-thinking the role of government – so that governments at all levels become increasingly funders, regulators and commissioners, whose task it is to secure quality and guarantee fair access for all, instead of attempting to run the public services from a desk in Whitehall, city hall or county hall..."

The right to choose the best public service at the heart of radical reform programme

Cabinet Office, News Release, CAB 021-12, 29 March 2012. "Increasing parental choice in schools, extending personal budgets so people can choose how they spend money on services and increasing the transparency of public service performance and user satisfaction are all part of the next steps to improve public services by opening them up, as set out in an update paper from the Government today. The paper sets out the huge amount that has been achieved in the eight months since the publication of the Open Public Service (OPS) White Paper in summer 2011 – the creation of free schools and expansion of academies, and the radical reform of the welfare system and the introduction of the Payment by Results Work Programme – and more importantly focuses on the next stages, emphasising the importance of ensuring the quality of public services continues to improve whilst meeting the Government’s tough targets on financial spending..."

Professionalizing service management

By: Cody Dodd. Canadian Executive Government, March 23, 2012. "For leaders, the biggest challenge to improving public sector service delivery is not just identifying citizens' voices and needs. Rather, it is embedding a citizen-centred service culture throughout an organization that is receptive to those needs. Through the Institute for Citizen-Centred Service's (ICCS) Certified Service Manager (CSM) program, many organizations are turning to certification and learning as a way to enable and support culture change and to enhance service excellence..."

How to make your company think like a customer

by Floren Robinson and Justin M. Brown. Accenture, March, 2012. "Customers today expect an imaginative, high-quality experience in a multichannel environment. Regard this as an opportunity... Merely adding customer-centricity to your vision statement isn’t enough. Thinking like your customer is the first challenge, and delivering a positive customer experience is even harder. Achieving customer-centricity requires rethinking the way business is done. And this, in turn, requires a holistic approach that encompasses everything from analytics and insights to strategy and customer experience, from operating model design and execution to governance and transformation management..."

Citizens, Are You Being Served? in pdf format (586kb)

(This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). A People-First Approach to Transforming Government Services, by Miguel Carrasco and Julia Fetherston. Boston Consulting Group, November 2011. "With people increasingly accustomed to a range of personalized mobile and digital channels, the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to delivering public services looks increasingly outdated and cumbersome. Indeed, a recent BCG survey of citizens around the globe showed relatively low satisfaction with such services. It's time for governments to fundamentally rethink how they serve their citizens... Examples from Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand and the UK show how some governments are implementing bold, innovative approaches to service delivery..."

Community Engagement - Topics A-Z

Topics A-Z listing of articles and resources about community and citizen engagement initiatives by government.