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Satisfaction With E-Government Crests Due to Transparency

More open data online and a greater range of services have made the federal government’s e-government scores among the highest ever recorded.

Credit online transparency for boosting the satisfaction scores of federal government websites to some of the highest ever recorded. More open data online and a greater range of services have pushed e-government scores up 0.8 percent to 75.3 on a 100-point scale in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Government Index.

As more federal agencies work to comply with the Barack Obama administration’s Open Government Initiative, increased transparency leads to citizen satisfaction and trust in government, according to the ForeSee Results/Nextgov Government Transparency Study released last week.

“Citizens are consumers of government services, and what makes them so satisfied about federal websites is that they are generally able to find what they want and accomplish what they have set out to do,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results, in a release. “This provides a win-win for citizens: easier and more accessible information and services at a lower cost to taxpayers.”

Using the ACSI methodology, ForeSee Results surveyed more than 275,000 visitors to 113 federal websites in the third quarter of 2010. High satisfaction with federal government websites increases the likelihood that citizens will trust and participate in government, among other benefits.

As satisfaction with e-government goes up, so does trust and participation, the study found. Highly satisfied citizens (those who score 80 or higher) rate their trust in government unit 58 percent higher than dissatisfied citizens. Other key stats indicate that satisfied citizens are:
 

  • 55 percent more likely to participate in government;
  • 80 percent more likely to use the website as a primary resources, as opposed to other more costly channels like a call center; and
  • 52 percent more likely to return to the website.
     
Despite the high marks in e-government, the federal government’s offline presence is still playing catch-up. The latest e-government score is 10 percent higher than the overall federal government score of 68.7 measured in the fourth quarter of 2009.

“There is often a disconnect between citizens’ personal experience with the federal government online and offline,” said Claes Fornell, founder of ACSI and a business professor at the University of Michigan. “Online sectors of the economy typically perform better than offline sectors in terms of customer satisfaction, and with government services it is no different.”

The full study reports individual scores for each of the 113 websites on the ACSI’s 100-point scale.

 

Miriam Jones is a former chief copy editor of Government Technology, Governing, Public CIO and Emergency Management magazines.