Agencies to Get Customer Service Grades

Federal officials are preparing to release a new online dashboard to highlight how agencies score on customer service as they adopt social networking tools to engage the public.

The Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration's Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies are developing the dashboard to display and compare agencies' customer service standards and levels of customer satisfaction. The relevant metrics include waiting times, processing times and the percentage of problems resolved with a single phone call or online interaction. OMB expects the dashboard to launch in late 2010, according to the GAO report released Oct. 27. The Government Accountability Office said the dashboard would be a step toward improving service but noted that more work needs to be done for agencies to identify and share best practices with one another and share information with customers.