Satisfaction With US Government Contact Centres Lags Behind Private Sector

Policies and Procedures, Contact Process and Representative's Knowledge cited as critical drivers for this divide.

The seventh annual CFI Group's Government Centre Satisfaction Index has found that while citizen satisfaction with US government contact centres has improved year-on-year it still lags behind the private sector.

SEE ALSO: The Business Value of Integrating the Contact Centre Within Your Omni-Channel Strategy

The index, which uses the proven methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, aims to provide managers with a better understanding of how to meet the needs of their contact centre users.

Overall scores for government contact centres improved 4 points in 2014 to 67, which marks a rebound from a 9-point fall in 2013 and provides hope for a positive trend going forward.

However, the CFI Group CCSI 2014 study found private sector contact centres had an overall score of 72, so there is still a lot of room for improvement for government contact centres.

The improvement was largely driven by two departments: The Centre for Medicare & Medicaid Service improved its score 7 points to 68 and the Department of Education improved 6 points to 76.

Other notable department scores include Social Security Administration (70), Department of Veteran Affairs (65) and Internal Revenue Service (64). State and local governments scored 68.

The report cites three critical drivers - "Policies and Procedures," "Contact Process" and "Representative's Knowledge" - in which government call centres lag behind the private sector.

Sheri Petras, CEO of CFI Group, said: "We all know government contact centres face inherent and deep-seated challenges.

"But knowing what matters most to citizens will help contact centres meet their goal of providing excellent customer service.

Compare those three critical areas against the private sector and you plainly see where government contact centres can score closer to their private sector counterparts and get back to 2012 levels, when the GCCSI score was 72."