GSA Seeks to Simplify Citizen Survey Work for High-Impact Agencies

A notice published in the Federal Register Friday indicates the General Services Administration wants to help high impact service provider (HISP) agencies comply with updates to Section 280 of the Office of Management and Budget’s Circular A-11.

The notice indicates GSA would reduce the bureaucratic burden under the Paperwork Reduction Act for approximately two dozen HISPs identified in the President’s Management Agenda as they implement the most basic customer experience improvement requirements.

The guidance requires HISPs to ask questions of their customers in seven domains: overall satisfaction; confidence and trust; service quality; the ease, efficiency and equity of the process; and employee helpfulness. In the notice, GSA proposes several sample survey questions HISPs can use to ascertain their experience measurements, and agencies that work with GSA regarding this specific survey would not have to navigate the Paperwork Reduction Act process alone.

“This proposed information collection activity provides a means to garner customer and stakeholder feedback in an efficient, timely manner in accordance with the administration's commitment to improving customer service delivery,” the notice states.

The information collected would pertain to real-time transaction-level measures. According to the notice, the results “will be used to improve the delivery of federal services and programs.”

“It will also provide governmentwide data on customer experience that can be displayed on www.performance.gov to help build transparency and accountability of federal programs to the customers they serve,” the notice states.

The public and other stakeholders have until Oct. 15 to comment.