Citizen Satisfaction With Federal Government Websites Hits All-Time High, According to ACSI E-Gov Index; Top-Performing Sites Improve In Areas That Have Most Impact, Says Report by ForeSee Results.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- After stalling last quarter, citizen satisfaction with online government is back on an upward trend this quarter reaching its highest score ever. The latest results of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index rose 0.7 percent to 74.0 on ACSI's 100-point scale, edging past its previous high of 73.9 set two quarters ago. This quarter's e-government satisfaction score mirrors the latest ACSI aggregate score for the private sector of 74.1.

Citizen satisfaction with e-government has been improving steadily and incrementally over the last two years. In the second quarter of 2006, 92 sites were measured and 20 of those sites scored 80 or higher, a threshold generally recognized by the ACSI to demonstrate excellent commitment to citizen or customer satisfaction.

"As citizens continue to utilize the online channel in higher numbers, the improvements in online government are encouraging," said Claes Fornell, director of the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan and founder of the ACSI. "But private sector websites continue to set the bar, so federal websites should not be complacent." The e-government aggregate scores still trails private sector ACSI measures for e-business (75.9) and e-commerce (79.6), but the gap is gradually narrowing.

In most cases, online satisfaction scores for federal websites improve incrementally. Forty-nine percent of sites measured this quarter and last showed improvement in citizen satisfaction, though no site posted a quarterly increase of more than three points. Still, this is the highest percentage of improving websites and a big reason why the aggregate Index is climbing. Twenty-four percent of sites showed no change and 27 percent declined.

"Many top performing government websites are using customer satisfaction measurement as a management metric and it shows," said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results and author of the report. "When federal websites commit to collect and act on the 'voice of the customer,' they can focus their resources on areas that will have the most impact on satisfaction and future behavior. It's smart business and smart government."

Comparing the top performers that score 80 or better to the bottom-performing sites that score 70 or lower, there is quite a disparity in critical elements like search and navigation. The top-performers scored 20 percent higher as a group than the lower scoring sites for most measured elements. The disparity is even more pronounced when it comes to future behaviors, which includes likelihood to recommend and likelihood to return to the site. While top performers on aggregate scored 87 on Likelihood to Return to the site, the bottom performers had an aggregate score of 78. For Likelihood to Recommend, top performers aggregate scored 86, far above the lower performers at 73.

But even within the bottom performing sites there is some good news. For example, the Department of the Treasury, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau's website saw its score climb five points to 63 from one year ago and three points in the last quarter.

Health information repositories MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus en Espanol continue to meet the needs and exceed expectations of both their English- and Spanish-speaking constituencies. Both sites have remained in the top performers group for each of the 11 quarters in which they have been measured.

"The success of MedlinePlus in the ACSI shows that the Federal Government, and specifically the National Institutes of Health, can provide the public with reliable and well-organized health information via the World Wide Web," said Robert Mehnert, director of communications for NIH's National Library of Medicine. "What we learn from our experience with ACSI allows us to make constant improvements to MedlinePlus."

The National Cancer Institute's website has had exceptional satisfaction scores of 80 or higher since it was first measured in third quarter of 2004. Like the National Library of Medicine, the NCI recently began measuring customer satisfaction of the Spanish-language subset of its cancer.gov website, and the results have been similarly impressive with a score of 82.

"Cancer patients, their families, health professionals and others involved in their care need a comprehensive, current and credible source of information, and Cancer.gov strives to be that source," said Sue Feldman, web analytics program manager of NCI. "We keep track of how well we're doing by listening to, and acting on, the voice of customer feedback gathered through ForeSee Results."

"I'm encouraged by the positive steps that many government websites continue to take to better serve citizens on the web," said Anne Kelly, CEO of the Treasury's Federal Consulting Group. "The upward trends we're seeing this quarter in citizen satisfaction are validation of the government's progress in giving citizens what they want through the online channel."

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 the ACSI to be a standard metric for measuring citizen satisfaction. Over 100 Federal government agencies have used the ACSI to measure citizen satisfaction of more than 200 services and programs. The Index is produced by the University of Michigan, in partnership with the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and CFI Group, an international consulting firm. ForeSee Results sponsors the e-commerce, e-business and e-government indices.

ABOUT FORESEE RESULTS, INC.

ForeSee Results is the market leader in online customer satisfaction measurement and management and specializing in converting satisfaction data into user-driven web development strategies. Using the methodology of the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), ForeSee Results has created a model that scientifically quantifies the elements that drive online customer satisfaction and predicts future behaviors, including the likelihood to return to the site or recommend the site to others. ForeSee Results, a privately held company located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, can be found online at www.ForeSeeResults.com.