Congress to tackle federal government’s “customer service”

U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) introduced bipartisan legislation on Monday, July 30, to establish, monitor and improve customer service delivery across federal agencies, according to a news release.

The Government Customer Service Improvement Act of 2012 will require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to work with federal agencies to develop specific customer service standards, requires each agency to designate a Service Improvement Officer responsible for monitoring progress, and requires annual reporting on customer service results by agency.

The bipartisan legislation also establishes a special unit within OMB to temporarily assist those agencies which consistently fail to meet customer service standards.

the news release quoted Warner as saying, “Government customer service delivery breakdowns appear in the headlines all too often. Many of our veterans wait too long for critical medical services, and federal retirees often wait months before they begin to receive full benefits. That simply is not acceptable. As any business school graduate can tell you, ‘what gets measured gets done.’ I believe citizens should expect federal agencies to deliver customer service at least as well as the private sector does and, unfortunately, too often that is not the case.”