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News Bites
Information of interest from other publications
related to quality, participation, change, and
leadership
American Customer Satisfaction Index:
Satisfaction With Government Drops Slightly
Although Americans are slightly less satisfied
with the federal government compared with a year ago,
customer satisfaction with federal services still
ranks closely behind that of private industry,
according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index
(ACSI) released December 16, 2002.
The ACSI score for government agencies, including
those that are regulatory and those that administer
benefits, fell to 70.2 in 2002 from a record-high
71.3 in 2001. Overall, the customer satisfaction
score for the aggregate ACSI (which includes the
public and private sectors) increased from 72 to 73.1
during the same time.
In its annual report on how satisfied Americans
are with the services of the federal government, the
ACSI shows that large declines in satisfaction with
Medicare and parts of the Internal Revenue Service
account for most of the drop in the overall
government score.
The ACSI is a national economic indicator of
customer evaluations of the quality of products and
services available to household consumers in the
United States. It is updated each quarter with new
measures for different sectors of the economy
replacing data from the previous year.
Each December, the ACSI issues a report on
satisfaction of recipients of services from the
federal government. Agency participation is
voluntary. This year, 39 different customer groups
served by 24 agencies were measured.
The index is produced by a partnership of the
University of Michigan Business School, American
Society for Quality, and CFI Group. It is supported
in part by ForeSee Results, an e-commerce sponsor,
and Market Strategies Inc., a major corporate
contributor. The Federal Consulting Group, a
franchise within the U.S. Department of the Treasury,
is the executive agent for the ACSI and the federal
government. Agency scores and other information about
the ACSI can be found at www.theacsi.org and at
www.customerservice.gov
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ISO Looks for Feedback on New Standards
The product support initiative (PSI) for ISO
9001:2000 of ISO Technical Committee 176 is
collecting experiences of users of the revised
quality management standards. Feedback on what works
well and what needs to be improved can be e-mailed to
the following regional coordinators:
Excerpted with permission from Quality
Progress, Vol. 36, No. 1, January 2003.
Ways to Improve Interviewing Skills
RHI Management Resources, Menlo, CA, recently
surveyed 1,400 CFOs from U.S. companies with more
than 20 employees to learn what interviewing
practices are the most likely to cost candidates the
job. The table below summarizes the key findings:
Paul McDonald, RHI’s executive director,
reported, “When hiring at the senior level,
companies pay particular attention to a
candidate’s ability to lead, motivate, and
communicate effectively. Firms value applicants who
not only convey authority and aptitude, but who also
have the interpersonal skills needed to direct a team
and collaborate with top executives.”
The key to success clearly involves the ability to
display confidence without being over-confident or
overbearing.
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