Federal Agency Customer Experience Act Reintroduced in Senate

Congress may soon consider familiar customer experience-related legislation.

Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H, and James Lankford, R-Okla., have reintroduced the Federal Agency Customer Experience Act, which would simplify the process through which federal agencies gather public feedback regarding service delivery and customer experience.

The legislation unanimously passed the Senate in 2017 and cleared the House in 2018, but a final version of the legislation never made it to the president’s desk for signature. This iteration of the legislation tweaks elements of the Paperwork Reduction Act that can prolong—by months or more—the process agencies use to collect voluntary feedback, which is problematic given today’s real-time data collection technologies.

“Essentially, FACE is saying, ‘Yes on the customer feedback. But let’s cut the complex approvals process for agencies,’” said Stephanie Thum, founding principal at Practical CX, in a blog post on the legislation.

Conditions could be ripe for the FACE Act’s passage. Though the bill does not yet have House sponsors, legislators on both sides of the political aisle recognize the government’s poor performance in customer experience when compared to other industries. The legislation itself cites the federal government’s rank “among the bottom of all industries in the United States in customer satisfaction” in the 2018 American Customer Satisfaction Index.