ANN ARBOR — The approval of the president may be 40 percent and Congress near the single digits, but Americans really like most of the government services delivered online, according to the Ann Arbor customer satisfaction analysis firm ForeSee.
Thursday, ForeSee released the 2014 third-quarter E-Government Satisfaction Index, an examination of the success of the U.S. government’s online initiatives. The latest report includes citizen satisfaction scores for more than 100 federal websites, comparisons to private-sector satisfaction scores and details on citizens’ expectations for federal mobile sites.
Overall, e-government outperformed private sector — several Social Security Administration sites ranked higher in citizen satisfaction than Apple or Amazon websites.
Average citizen satisfaction for e-government was 75 on the study’s 100-point scale, up from 74.8 in the second quarter. Two websites from the Social Security Administration continue to lead the pack — Extra Help with Medicare Prescription Drugs, and the SSA Retirement Estimator, both at satisfaction scores of 90. These sites outperformed some of the top ACSI-measured private sector sites such as Mercedes-Benz (88), Amazon (88), Apple (87) and FedEx (85) in satisfaction.
However, all was not rosy. Satisfaction with e-government mobile sites was down, to 78 in the latest survey from 79 in the second quarter. But satisfaction is still up from 77 in the first quarter. The level of mobile citizen satisfaction is promising for government agencies as more consumers utilize mobile devices to access information. According to the Pew Research Center, some 28% of registered voters have used their cell phone this year to keep up with news relating to the midterm elections.
And ForeSee said government e-commerce sites achieved highest satisfaction scores, recording a score of 80, up from 79 last quarter. The SSA continued to lead with six out of its seven websites leading this category, with scores ranging from 83 to 90.
ForeSee’s proprietary methodology, which identifies key drivers of online satisfaction and quantifies their relationship to overall citizen satisfaction, has been proven to predict how citizens will behave in the future.
ForeSee collected more than 270,000 survey responses across 105 federal government websites for the 2014 third-quarter E-Government Satisfaction Index and rated agencies on a 100-point citizen satisfaction scale. A score of 80 or higher is considered the threshold for excellence at which a site meets and exceeds citizen expectations.
A complete list of citizen satisfaction scores for individual federal government websites across E-Commerce and Transaction, News and Information, Portals and Department Main, and Careers and Recruitment categories can be viewed in the ForeSee’s latest report: 2014 third-quarter E-Government Satisfaction Index. More at www.foresee.com.
ForeSee is now owned by St. Louis, Mo.-based Answers Inc.