The Social Security Administration (SSA) is planning to improve customer service delivery and experience through a range of customer service activities including surveys, user testing, interviews, and focus groups.
The coming SSA effort tracks with Improving Customer Experience – or Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-11, Section 280 Implementation – an effort to raise customer experience government-wide to the average level of the private sector.
“Developing indicators for high-impact Federal programs to monitor progress towards excellent customer experience and mature digital services; and providing the structure (including increasing transparency) and resources to ensure customer experience is a focal point for agency leadership,” SSA’s request for comment says.
The agency is seeking comment on the following items:
- Whether the information collected is necessary for proper agency function and performance;
- Accuracy of the estimated burden of information collection for an agency;
- How to enhance quality, utility, and clarity of collected information;
- How to minimize burden of information collection on respondents; and
- Estimates of start-up costs and operation costs, maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information.
Initial estimates by SSA include approximately 17.8 million customer experience activities and an average of 5.9 million annual responses. The agency estimates an average of 12 minutes per response to an activity – depending on which activity – which aligns with SSA’s desire to have activities be low-burden for both respondents and the Federal government.
