In 2001, the President announced his management agenda for making the government more focused on citizens and results, which included expanding Electronic Government (E-Government). The President’s E- Government Strategy identified several governmentwide initiatives with a goal of eliminating redundant systems and significantly improving the government’s quality of customer service for citizens and businesses. The expected results of the E-Government initiative include providing high- quality customer service regardless of whether a citizen contacts an agency by phone, in person, or on the worldwide Web. The E-Government Act of 2002 codified the President’s E-Government initiatives and expanded OMB’s leadership role by establishing the Office of E- Government and Information Technology within OMB. The act also requires that agencies comply with OMB E-Guidance. One of the 24 presidential E-Government initiatives is developing and deploying governmentwide citizen customer service using industry best practices that will provide citizens with timely, consistent responses about government information and services via e-mail, telephone, Internet, and publications. By congressional direction, OMB also is responsible for establishing and issuing governmentwide guidelines to federal agencies for ensuring the quality of the information disseminated to the public. In response to this direction, OMB issued guidance to agencies in February 2002 that defined the quality of information to include accuracy as one of its fundamental elements and directed agencies to develop procedures for reviewing and substantiating the quality of their information before dissemination. Contact centers are one method agencies use to disseminate information to the public. In the past, public inquiries to the government were often made by telephone and thus federal agencies began establishing call centers. With evolving technology, citizen inquiries to the government now come through various channels such as e-mails, Web-based forms, facsimiles, Web chat rooms, and traditional postal mail. As a result, agencies have established multichannel contact centers to handle these inquiries. Contact centers rely on automated and live telephone response systems, Web site technologies, and trained customer service representatives to provide information to the public. For contractor- operated contact centers, the agency typically provides either scripted responses or the content from which the contractor creates its own scripted responses. The scripts are used for the prerecorded telephone response systems, Web pages, and preformatted responses given by the customer service representatives. Contact centers are staffed in tiers by generalist or specialist representatives or a combination of both. Usually, Tier 1 staff handle general information inquiries and direct more complex or personal issues to specialized Tier 2 or Tier 3 staff or to the agency’s subject matter experts. One method for obtaining information on the contact centers that are operated by contractors on behalf of the government is to review data from FPDS. FPDS is used to report individual procurement transactions, which include the industrial classification of the goods and services procured by the federal government. FPDS was implemented by OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) in 1978 in response to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act of 1974 requirement of establishing a system for collecting and developing information about federal procurement contracts. Since 1982, GSA has administered FPDS on OFPP’s behalf. In 2003, the system was revised and is now called FPDS- Next Generation. A wide range of users, including those with the executive and legislative branches, rely on FPDS data for information on agency contracting actions, governmentwide procurement trends, and achievement of goals related to small business. The six agencies we reviewed emphasized accuracy of contact center information to varying degrees through the quality assurance mechanisms of their contracts and various oversight practices. Four of the six included a specific metric to measure contractor performance related to providing accurate information to the public, but only one of the six used all four of the oversight practices we identified—such as actively monitoring contacts—to ensure that accurate information is provided to the public. Each of the six agencies we reviewed specified key performance metrics that its contractor is required to meet. These performance metrics define the minimum level of quality acceptable to the agency and provide the basis against which the contractor is to be evaluated. We found that four of the six agencies’ contracts included accuracy of information in one or more of the key performance metrics. The remaining two agencies did not have specific metrics that addressed the need to provide accurate information to the public. Table 2 summarizes the key performance metrics specified in the contracts we reviewed and indicates through shading those that specifically address providing accurate information. The Federal Acquisition Regulation requires agencies to perform and document oversight of their contractors’ performance to ensure the government receives high-quality services as specified in the contract. Agency oversight provides quality assurance independent of the contractors’ own quality control processes. Although each agency employed some oversight practices, only two of the six agencies we reviewed used all four of the oversight practices we identified for ensuring that accurate information is provided to the public. Each agency emphasized accuracy of information to varying degrees within its practices. On the basis of our review of industry contact center practices and the practices employed by the agencies considered leaders in government contact centers, we identified four agency oversight practices related to ensuring that accurate information is provided to the public via a contractor-operated contact center. Table 3 describes the four accuracy- related oversight practices. The first two practices, knowledge database management and agency contact monitoring, provide direct oversight regarding accuracy of information, because they focus on detecting inaccuracies in the source information used to provide responses to the public and in the actual responses provided by the customer service representatives. The remaining two practices, customer satisfaction surveys and validation of contractor-prepared reports, are more indirect methods of ensuring accuracy in that they review customers’ reactions to the information provided and independent agency corroboration of the contractor’s reporting on its own quality procedures. The agencies we reviewed varied with respect to how they implemented these practices. This variance was due to a number of factors, such as differences among the agencies in staffing levels, funding, and the use of guidance specific to the agency. Table 4 shows the extent to which the six agencies we reviewed employ each of the accuracy-related oversight practices. Most of the agencies we reviewed had a structured process for ensuring accurate information is maintained in the knowledge database. DOL, Education, GSA, and USPS approve contractor-developed information that is created based on government-provided materials. These agencies then perform periodic reviews of the information in the knowledge database. CDC currently prepares all scripted responses and Web site information, which the contractor is required to use, and plans to implement annual reviews of the knowledge database, starting at the first anniversary of operation in February 2006. TMA allows the contractor to develop information based on material TMA provides, but does not review the information used by the contractor to respond to public inquires. DOD said that TMA relies on the expertise and skills of its contractor to provide the required services. Almost all of the agencies we reviewed perform regular monitoring of the contractor’s responses to the public to help assess whether accurate information is provided. CDC, DOL, Education, GSA, and USPS each monitor a number of contacts on a regular basis, although accuracy of information is addressed to varying degrees in the score sheets. For example, accuracy is clearly weighted as an important aspect of the call in CDC’s score sheet. Therefore if an inaccurate answer is provided, the contractor “fails” for that call and the customer service representative is counseled. On the other hand, Education’s score sheet does not clearly weight accuracy of information. Education and its contractor staff could not explain how providing inaccurate information on a call would be indicated on the monitoring score sheet. In addition to giving different weights to accuracy, the five agencies also vary in terms of the frequency with which they monitor their contacts. Education and USPS each employ one full-time staff to monitor a selection of the contact centers’ contacts. CDC has a third-party contractor monitor the contact center on a daily basis and uses this assessment in the determination of the contractor’s award fee. GSA staff monitor a sample of calls on a weekly basis and started performing quarterly audits of the contractor’s monitoring efforts in November 2005. The sixth center, TMA, only monitors calls on an ad hoc basis when officials visit the contact center. Three of the agencies we reviewed conduct customer satisfaction surveys subsequent to the initial contact from an individual. GSA, TMA, and USPS conduct customer satisfaction surveys, which ask, to limited degrees, questions that address the accuracy of information provided. While providing some level of insight regarding accuracy, customer surveys may not always provide a valid basis for oversight of the accuracy of information, since they usually ask the individual’s opinion on the service provided. If the survey is conducted too closely to the time of the inquiry, the individual may not have had time to act upon the information to know whether it is accurate or not. CDC plans to implement three types of postcontact customer satisfaction surveys through a third-party contractor beginning in June 2006. DOL does not conduct postcontact surveys because it does not maintain personal information on the individuals that contact the agency. Three of the six agencies we reviewed take steps to validate the information in the contractor-prepared reports related to contact center performance. These reports generally include some aspects related to accuracy of information provided to the public, such as the contractor’s results of its monitoring of contacts. CDC and USPS validate to some degree the reports provided by the contractor. GSA conducts quarterly audits of its contractor’s supporting data. Although DOL, Education, and TMA review their contractor reports, they rely upon the reports without validation. According to GAO’s standards for internal control in the federal government, good internal control practices require that agencies validate the performance reports provided by the contractor to ensure the information is valid. The federal government does not have comprehensive, centralized guidance for operating a contact center or for overseeing a contractor- operated center. Although operation and oversight of contact centers are the responsibility of individual agencies, GSA, in consultation with OMB, determined that governmentwide standards would be useful.