GPRA was intended to address several broad purposes, including promoting a new focus on results, service quality, and customer satisfaction. GPRA requires executive agencies to develop strategic plans, prepare annual performance plans, measure performance toward the achievement of goals in the annual plans and report annually on their progress. Building on GPRA and in carrying out the principles of the National Performance Review (NPR), on September 11, 1993, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12862, which remains in effect. The order created several requirements for agencies related to customer service. Specifically, the order stated that all executive departments and agencies that provide significant services directly to the public shall provide customer service equal to the best in business and shall take the following actions: identify the customers who are, or should be, served by the agency survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services post service standards and measure results against them benchmark customer service performance against the best in business survey frontline employees on barriers to, and ideas for, matching the provide customers with choices in both the sources of service and the make information, services, and complaint systems easily accessible provide means to address customer complaints On March 23, 1995, President Clinton issued a presidential memorandum on improving customer service, which stated that the standards agencies had begun issuing in response to Executive Order 12862 had told the federal government’s customers for the first time what they had a right to expect when they asked for services. The memorandum instructed agencies to treat the requirements of Executive Order 12862 as continuing requirements and stated that the actions the order prescribes, including surveying customers and employees and benchmarking, shall be continuing agency activities. The memorandum further provided that standards should be published in a form readily available to customers, and that services that are delivered in partnership with state and local governments, services delivered by small agencies and regulatory agencies, and customer services of enforcement agencies are covered by the requirement to set and publish customer service standards. It further stated that agencies shall, on an ongoing basis, measure results achieved against the customer service standards and report those results to customers at least annually in terms readily understood by individual customers, and that measurement systems should include objective measures wherever possible, but should also include customer satisfaction as a measure. Finally, the memorandum stated that agencies should publish replacement customer service standards if needed to reflect customer views on what matters most to them. According to the last NPR report on customer service in 1997, 570 federal departments, agencies, organizations, and programs issued a total of 4,000 customer services standards. The NPR report was accompanied by a database through which customers could search for standards of interest or browse standards by customer group, such as beneficiaries, veterans, and businesses. For example, the Immigration and Naturalization Service issued a standard that it would complete action on naturalization applications within 6 months, and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a standard for Medicare and Medicaid that 80 percent of callers would be on hold for less than 2 minutes. In addition, the report stated that for 2,800 of the 4,000 standards, results of performance against the standards had been identified and were the basis for changes and improvements in the delivery of service. All 13 services we surveyed had established customer service standards. Officials from the Indian Health Service (IHS), which provides medical care for American Indians and Alaska Natives, told us their customer service standards are established by their area offices and facilities. The other services had standards that applied service-wide. The services’ standards varied in their form. Some standards were general commitments to qualitative standards, often stating commitments to meet certain identified customer rights. Other standards were structured quantitatively and based on daily, monthly, or annual averages. The Bureau of Consular Affairs, for example, had standards that include general commitments to qualitative standards for Passport Services, such as “We will provide service in a courteous, professional manner,” as well as commitments to meet customer rights, such as “You have the right to speak with management if you are not satisfied with the service you have received.” Some of the standards from IHS area offices and facilities also stated general commitments to qualified standards such as, “have pride in our appearance, and provide a pleasant greeting,” while other IHS area offices and facilities had individual level quantitative standards, which included, “answering phone calls within three rings.” The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has established several quantitative standards for customer service related to their Veterans’ Group Life Insurance (VGLI) program, including averages such as the speed of answer for their call center, which is set at 20 seconds, as well as call abandonment rates, which they set at 2 percent. Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has similar quantitative standards for their Medical Care program, such as a standard for the number of new patient appointments completed within 30 days of the appointment create date. All services reported that they had reviewed their standards within the last year. For example, VGLI told us that they review standards annually, and 2 years ago changed the standard for e-mail response time from 48 to 24 hours based on this review. Similarly, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials told us that standards for taxpayer assistance are reviewed to see if they need updating three times per year by executives, directors, and managers, and the Forest Service told us that they review standards for recreational facilities and services as part of their annual performance reporting required by GPRA. All 13 of the surveyed services reported having measures of customer service, and 11 of the services reported having measures of satisfaction. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has methods of gathering input from customers, such as through their comment card program and the online question and comment section of their CBP Info Center Web page, and is planning to measure customer satisfaction through a customer satisfaction survey in 2011. CBP submitted the planned survey for review and approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on September 1, 2010. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has methods of gathering input from customers by phone or e-mail through their Customer Contact Center, through the “TSA Blog” and “Talk to TSA” feedback Web site, or through speaking with a TSA manager at the airport; however, they do not have measures of satisfaction. All the services reported they measure customer service at least annually, and all 11 services that measured customer satisfaction reported doing so at least annually as well. In addition, many services measured more frequently. Eleven of the surveyed services measure customer satisfaction daily, for example, and 8 reported that they measure customer service daily. The surveyed services reported measuring various aspects of their customer service. Customer service measures can include measures related to customer access to services, wait times, accuracy and other factors. Eleven surveyed services had measures related to quality or accuracy of service. For example, IRS measures the accuracy of responses provided by service representatives to questions on both tax law and taxpayers’ accounts by listening to and reviewing phone calls. Ten services had measures related to customer wait times, eight had measures of processing time, and eight had measures related to access times. For example, Passport Services measures wait times for customers applying in a passport agency office, application processing times, and the number of passport book re-writes due to errors made by Passport Services. Similarly, for VGLI, VBA measures the percentage of calls that receive busy signals and the average speed of answer, as well as processing time for disbursements, applications, and correspondence. All surveyed services but TSA and CBP reported gathering input from customers regarding their level of satisfaction through surveys. The National Park Service (NPS), for instance, reported using a visitor survey card program to survey visitors at over 320 of its points of service. These surveys are conducted annually at NPS units to measure performance related to visitor satisfaction and visitor understanding of park significance. Four surveyed services stated that they use the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) to gather and report results. ACSI is a standardized customer satisfaction survey that measures customer satisfaction for a particular service based on drivers of satisfaction, including customer expectations and perceived quality. Overall results of the ACSI survey are made available on the ACSI public Web site, http://www.theacsi.org, where results can be compared among federal agencies that use the survey. Participating agencies receive more detailed results that contain information, trends, and recommendations for areas to work on to improve results. Federal Student Aid (FSA), which provides student loans under the direct loan program, for instance, uses an independent third-party contractor to conduct the ACSI survey on FSA’s behalf. Officials stated that from the results of ACSI, they determined that some of the responses that they were providing customers on telephone calls were not achieving satisfactory marks, which led FSA to start a task force to address the issue. In addition to customer surveys, most services also employed other methods through which they gathered customer input. The most common of these were comments cards or suggestion boxes (seven services), telephone numbers (seven services), and e-mail or written correspondence (five services). For instance, Social Security Administration (SSA) officials stated that customers have the opportunity to either complete comment cards at field offices, or send letters to field offices regarding their satisfaction with the service received. Passport Services officials stated that they gather input from customers by having them complete comment cards while being served at a passport agency. Additional methods services reported using for gathering input include focus groups, e-mail lists, conferences, and outreach campaigns. IHS, for instance, uses patient satisfaction surveys, telephone surveys, a director’s blog, personal interviews, an incident reporting process, tribal negotiation meetings, suggestion boxes, and a patient needs task force to gather input from customers. All surveyed services reporting having methods to receive customer complaints. In addition to general methods of gathering input described above, many agencies reported using additional methods to receive complaints.