The launch was announced by Vice President Gore through the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. ACSI is a national economic indicator of the quality of goods and services in the U.S. marketplace. It provides customer satisfaction scores for 34 industries and 200 companies with aggregates to economic sectors and to the nation as a whole. Established in 1994, the ACSI methodology links customer satisfaction to economic returns for companies and to improved performance for the public sector. ACSI is produced through a partnership between the University of Michigan Business School, the American Society for Quality, and Arthur Andersen.
Government service is a large part of the economy.
The ACSI methodology was developed under the direction of Fornell. The public sector is under great pressure to become more efficient. But efficiency is not always the same as good service. ACSI scores customer satisfaction on a scale that allows comparisons among agencies and with private businesses. Research and statistical analysis will be done at the University of Michigan Business School's National Quality Research Center under the direction of Fornell and Barbara Everitt Bryant, former director of the Census Bureau.