Government Service Highs and Lows

This week the American Customer Satisfaction Index Federal Government Study came out, and it asserts that citizen satisfaction with the U.S. federal government is at a 19-year high, reaching a 70.4 score on a 100-point scale. This is the fourth straight year of rising citizen satisfaction, according to the ACSI, which has observed “real momentum in improving how citizens experience federal services.”

The ACSI also points out that despite higher numbers of complaints filed across the federal government, citizens rate the complaint-handling experience 19 points higher this year than they did in 2021.

“The early introduction of artificial intelligence is already making a difference, from simplifying passport renewals to expediting benefits processing and enabling faster, more effective support,” says Forrest Morgeson, an associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University and a retired research director at the ACSI. “While these advancements are just beginning, they signal a future where government services can be more responsible and accessible to all.”

The ACSI also notes that citizen satisfaction with federal government call centers is on the rise, up 5 percent to a score of 65. It credits the deployment of callback systems, artificial intelligence-powered virtual agents, and voicebots for the improvements.

It is important to note that the ACSI surveys concluded before the disastrous 41-day shutdown that just ended Nov. 10. I fear that the shutdown might have set back any gains that were made, but we’ll have to wait and see.

More important, I need to point out that this data only applies to customer service operations on the federal level, not on the state or local levels. Based on my recent interactions with the customer service departments of my city’s Department of Buildings and Department of Environmental Protection, I think I can safely say that local governments still have a long way to go in improving their customer service operations and that their satisfaction scores would not be anywhere near as high.

Without boring you with too many details, I had the unfortunate need to deal with the DoB to resolve some unwarranted violations against my parents’ house related to a stairlift installed for my mother to get inside the house, and to deal with the DEP for an unreasonably high water bill that turned out to have been generated by a faulty water meter.

Both situations have been resolved, but the resolutions came in spite of, not because of, my interactions with the city’s call centers for these agencies. In these two cases, the contact centers were slow to answer—I waited on hold for more than 30 minutes to speak to an agent; I had to repeat all the information that I gave to the automated system when the agents finally came online; and the agents then were completely unhelpful, reading straight from a script and unable to handle any variation that wasn’t in the knowledge base on their desktops. And getting the information I needed to seek the resolution on my own required multiple contacts and transfers over several days. I’m just glad I work from home so no one else had to hear my expletive-laden rants.

I wasn’t expecting the white-glove service that we discuss in this issue (“White-Glove-for-All Is the Future of Customer Care”), although that is a trend that is permeating just about every industry and will likely hit the government sector in the not-too-distant future. But at the same time, I wasn’t expecting my contact center interactions with the city to be so unsatisfying. As we are preparing to install a new city administration in January, I would encourage our new leaders to read this feature and implement some of the action items suggested therein.

Unfortunately, the incentive for government agencies to improve is low. On the private-sector side, if I don’t like the service I receive from one company I can turn to a competitor today with relative ease. If I don’t like the service I receive from my local DMV, it’s not like I can get my driver’s license from someone else. If I can’t successfully resolve a parking ticket through the 311 call center, I don’t have many other options.

I’m glad that the federal government is improving its customer service, but the most impactful government services affect people more often on the local level. I hope, therefore, that local mayors and governors will take a few pointers from the federal government.

Leonard Klie is the editor of CRM magazine. He can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.

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