Citizen Satisfaction with Federal Websites Surges to New All-Time High

Satisfaction Measurement Linked to Performance Gains; Obama’s Commitment to E-Gov Starts to Pay Dividends

Ann Arbor, Mich. (October 27, 2009) – Citizen satisfaction with federal government websites surged to a new all-time high in the third quarter of 2009, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index released today from ForeSee Results and ACSI.

The Index reached 75.2 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale, an increase of 2.2% since the second quarter and 1.8% higher than one year ago. The previous high was reached in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The study finds there is a strong relationship between the length of time federal websites have measured satisfaction and their ability to make significant improvements. Analysis shows the longer a federal website has been measuring satisfaction, the bigger the improvements, over both the long term and short term.

“This is the largest quarter-over-quarter jump in satisfaction since the Index was started six years ago, and it comes early during the administration of the nation’s most tech-savvy president,” said Larry Freed, President and CEO of ForeSee Results, sponsor of the ACSI E-Government Index. “But while Obama can take some of the credit for getting the right team in place to support e-gov efforts, the real driving force are the people in the trenches who have been putting in years of hard work to improve federal agency websites.”

The increase in e-government satisfaction also brings government more into pace with the private sector. While the e-government aggregate (75.2) still significantly trails private sector industries like portals and search engines (83) and e-retail (82), e-gov outperforms the online news and information industry aggregate (74), online brokerage and investment (74), and just edges out the online travel industry (75).
Moreover, at the individual site level, a larger proportion of e-gov websites are top performers than e-retail websites. Of the E-Gov Index’s 104 sites, 29 scored 80 or higher, long considered the threshold for excellence in the ACSI. In a similar study of the top 100 e-retail websites, only six scored over 80. Some sites from the Social Security Administration and from Health and Human Services surpass even those of the private sector stalwarts like Netflix and Amazon.

“It’s remarkable to see so many e-government websites in the high 80’s and even in the 90’s,” said University of Michigan Professor Claes Fornell, who heads up the ACSI. “The stereotype is that government is always inferior to the private sector, but we may start to see those perceptions change when it comes to e-gov initiatives.”

The study also quantified how increased satisfaction with federal websites can drive government efficiency and savings. Highly satisfied citizens are 52% more likely to return to the website than are dissatisfied citizens, and they are 79% more likely to recommend the website and 86% more likely to use the website before using other more costly channels like contact centers.

“People are just starting to realize just how much of an impact e-government initiatives can have when done well,” said Dave Lewan, Director of Government and Public Markets at ForeSee Results. “Not only does increased citizen satisfaction lead to cost and time efficiencies, research actually shows that citizens that are more satisfied online are more likely to trust government overall. They’re also more likely to participate in the democratic process.”

The third quarter ACSI E-Government Satisfaction Index measured 104 federal agency websites and is based on 291,000 citizen responses. To download a free copy of the full report, please visit www.ForeSeeResults.com.
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 was founded at the University of Michigan in 1994. ForeSee Results sponsors the e-government index.

Source: ForeSee Results