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Imagine buying a monthly pass for your commuter train or bus line and getting a 10 percent discount because the trains or buses ran late too often the previous month.
Or imagine getting your building permits for free because the permit agency didn't process them in time.
Or imagine buying a CD-ROM from a government statistical agency and getting the next one free because the agency failed to ship the item in one day.
Even leading businesses rarely demonstrate this level of commitment to their customers. (When was the last time you got a discount because your plane was late?) But a few pioneering government agencies are struggling to match the Nordstroms and L.L. Beans of the world.
The Commerce Department's Economics and Statistics Administration, which calls itself "STAT-USA," says: "If we do not ship your order within one business day of acceptance, we will, upon request, provide you with a free CD-ROM or extend your order by one month."
The Massachusetts and Pennsylvania departments of environmental protection set deadlines for processing virtually every permit they administer. When they miss a deadline, they waive the fee.
In Sunnyvale, Calif., if you are not satisfied with a recreation program or course, you get your money back, no questions asked.
The real leader in this service revolution is Britain, where John Major's Citizen's Charter, launched in 1991, required every public organization in the country to survey its customers, establish customer service standards and, if possible, provide "redress" -- such as a discount on next month's rail pass -- when it fails to meet its standards. Tony Blair's Labor government has promised to "relaunch" the charter with even deeper commitments to customer service.
"Equal to the Best in Business"
The United States is one of half a dozen countries that have copied the Citizen's Charter. Vice President Gore's National Performance Review signed on in 1993 after a visit from the British Citizen's Charter Unit. President Clinton issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to identify their customers, survey them "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" and "benchmark customer service standards against the best in business." The target, Clinton announced, should be quality "equal to the best in business."
Few agencies have complied with all these demands, but most -- including some of those with the worst reputations -- have at least published customer service standards.
The Postal Service promises overnight delivery for local first-class mail, three-day delivery for first-class mail within the continental United States and no more than a five-minute wait at Postal Service counters.
The Internal Revenue Service promises refunds on complete tax returns in 40 days (21 if you file electronically). If you ask its tax assisters for help and get a wrong answer, it promises to cancel any related penalties.
The State Department promises to issue passports within 25 days of application.
The Social Security Administration promises to see all people who have appointments within 10 minutes of the scheduled time, to answer all calls to its 800 number within five minutes and to provide all new and replacement Social Security cards within five days.
Few of these agencies broadcast these promises widely, however, and almost none provide redress. Without the pressure of publicity and penalties for failure, progress has been mixed. Greg Woods, the deputy director of the National Performance Review, who hatched the initiative, estimates that only 10 percent to 20 percent of agencies have even begun to measure how well they do in fulfilling their service standards.
But there have been success stories. The Postal Service is among them, as many business shippers learned during the UPS strike. The Postal Service's failure rate in meeting its one-day and three-day delivery standards dropped from 26 percent in 1993 to 8 percent this year -- though when it does fail, it still does nothing to compensate the customer.
The World Leader
To learn how to put teeth into customer service standards, the United States should look back across the Atlantic. In Britain, several major services pay compensation to their customers when they fail to meet their standards -- including passenger rail lines, the London Underground (subway), British Gas, public electricity suppliers and water/sewerage companies.
Rail service offers a good example. The Conservative government privatized British Rail in 1995 and 1996. One private company now owns the tracks, while 25 different companies have won franchises to operate rail lines. But each must publish its own charter, with standards at least as tough as these from British Rail's former Passenger's Charter:
- "If you are delayed for more than an hour on any leg of your rail journey, we will normally offer vouchers to the value of 20 percent or more of the price paid for that journey."
- "If, over the last year, your train service didn't meet its punctuality or reliability targets, British Rail will offer you a [5-to-10-percent] discount when you renew your season ticket." (Typical targets promised that 90 percent of trains would arrive within 10 minutes of the scheduled time and 99 percent of scheduled trains would run.)
Pressed by the threat of financial loss, many rail lines have steadily improved their performance. And they are not alone.
The National Health Service, which has set maximum waiting times for different services, has lowered waiting times for appointments from as long as two hours to a maximum of 30 minutes. The London Underground has met and raised its standards for reliability, cleanliness, security and passenger information three times since 1991. The Passport Office has cut the time it takes to get a passport from up to 95 days to a maximum of 15 working days.
Because the Citizen's Charter applies to every public organization in Britain, local governments have also set service goals. In the first five years of the charter movement, customer satisfaction with local government services increased from 51 percent to 61 percent on a National Consumer Council survey. (If you want to know more about the Citizen's Charter, try its web page: www.open.gov.uk/charter/ccuhome.htm.
There is still much room for improvement, of course. Sir David Clark, the Labor Party minister in charge of government reform, says he wants to raise the pressure by involving citizens more directly. He has floated the idea of creating a 5,000-member citizen's "panel" -- a kind of giant, permanent focus group -- to give the government feedback on its customer service standards and performance.
Ultimately, the real value of customer service standards is that they force continuous improvement -- forever. "This is the thing that I think is so interesting about the charter," says Diana Goldsworthy, one of the civil servants who invented it. "Imagine getting a politician to sign up to do something which invites the public to raise their expectations and never be satisfied. Because you're never going to be able to turn around and say, `We've done it.' The public will always want better service."
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