Using Internet-based Surveys to Measure Customer Satisfaction

• Activity Number: 402
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 15, 2002 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics*
• Author(s): Sameena Salvucci*+ and Albert Parker and Stephen Wenck and Samuel Peng and Arnold Goldstein
• Affiliation(s): Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc. and Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc. and Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc. and National Center For Education Statistics and National Center for Education Statistics
• Keywords: Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) ; Customer Satisfaction Survey ; Web-Based Survey ; Survey Design ; Performance Measures ; Strategic Planning

Abstract

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), as well as many other areas of the government, has been under increasing pressure to "improve Federal program effectiveness and public accountability by promoting a new focus on results, service quality, and customer satisfaction...." Maintaining the status quo is not a viable option, as evidenced by recent statutory and regulatory requirements such as the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) enacted in 1993, to "provide for the establishment of strategic planning and performance measurement in the Federal Government." In 2001 NCES conducted their fourth customer satisfaction survey. This paper will describe how results of the 2001 NCES Customer Satisfaction Survey were used to address the performance indicators of the Center under GPRA. The paper will also describe how these performance indicators were used to identify areas of performance planning that NCES will need to focus on in the future. In addition, the paper presents a summary of the methodology from the 2001 survey, including the development of a split mode (Internet and mail) data collection. Results of the effectiveness of the dual mode are discussed.