Assessing Customer Satisfaction

Executive Order 12862, Setting Customer Standards, requires that all Federal executive departments and agencies that provide direct services to the public, "survey front-line employees on barriers to, and ideas for, matching the best-in-business" customer service standards. This information is intended to guide the development of customer service plans as well as other efforts undertaken as a result of the National Performance Review.

In line with this edict, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contracted with HumRRO to conduct an internal survey of a representative sample of their employees to identify, among other things: who NASA personnel see as their internal and external customers; the level of knowledge and understanding of customer service concepts; barriers to matching best-in-business customer service standards; ideas for improving current practices in this regard; and relationships between employees' expectations as service providers and recipients.

HumRRO worked closely with staff from NASA's Office of Continual Improvement to draft, pretest, and revise the survey instrument. Although the central core of items remained focused on customer service issues, questions were added that provided an assessment of organizational climate. This was deemed an important element given the stress the agency was going through due to downsizing and fundamental shifts in philosophy and perspective.

A sample of 4,000 employees representing various centers, activities, and grade levels received the survey. Survey distribution was accomplished through agency channels. HumRRO scanned the returned forms, tabulated the results, and presented them in both report and briefing formats. We carried out analyses on both an Agency-wide and a by-Center basis. We separate briefings for senior management at each installation. In addition, HumRRO prepared a summary of the results was prepared for the Agency's Internet website, providing access to the entire employee population.

Several factors were key to the success of these efforts.

• HumRRO and NASA project staff maintained a close working relationship throughout the projects so that decisions could be made quickly and problems resolved before they hindered progress.
• The survey was pretested extensively with employees from all levels and locations to ensure that the content was relevant, understandable, and comprehensive.
• Similarly, senior personnel from each of the ten NASA Centers were involved in formulating the survey, helping to achieve buy-in and cooperation during subsequent implementation.
• Tough choices were made regarding 'need to know' and 'nice to know', so that the survey's length and layout were user friendly and conducive to responding.
• Respondents were asked to provide written input on how NASA functions and operations could be improved. This evoked extensive written responses that both illuminated the quantitative data and guided the revision of the survey during the follow-up administration.
• Efforts to provide feedback on the first year's results paved the way for the follow-up, as employees saw that the outcomes were made available to all interested parties.