The Internet, the federal government and the future

By Dorothy Ramienski
Internet Editor
FederalNewsRadio

As the country gears up for the election, some are wondering about the increasing effect of the Internet.

Both candidates are engaging the public in new ways, raising unprecedented amounts of money, and involving broader audiences, all because of their use of the Web.

On Tuesday’s Daily Debrief, hosts Christopher Dorobek and Amy Morris spoke with Larry Freed, Chief Executive Officer of ForeSee Results.

ForeSee recently published the results of its American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Government, and Freed says e-gov is going to be a priority of the next administration, regardless of party affiliation.

It has great value, not only to citizens, but also to lowering the cost of delivering government information. . . . The next frontier, if you will . . . is really the ability to do transactions on the Internet, whether it be registering for Social Security benefits or something along those lines — dealing with the IRS, filing your taxes — there’s a number of capabilities that are out there today.

Not only does e-gov save the taxpayers money, it can also improve the quality of service they get. In addition, Freed says the accessibility of information improves dramatically.

[This] obviously creates a much better transparency of what’s going on in government, which, again all the candidates say is a critical thing — but take it a step further as we can do more transactions online and get more information online. We’ll do all that at a much, much, much lower cost — and I don’t think it’ll cover the whole $700 billion that we’ve heard so much about — but it should help a great deal as we continue to expand the use of e-government.

Government transparency is a big issue in terms of customer satisfaction.

Freed says his company’s survey shows that the public might not always trust, for example, information about national security, but there are some sights that the public believes in.

There has to be some security in terms of what’s made available . . . clearly, there’s a lot of concern right now, but when we’re talking about information — you know, health-related information that you might find on a med-line plus Web site, I think in most cases, that kind of information has an incredibly high trust . . . value. [Also], if you’re going to look for information about taxes or about a company on the SEC’s Web site.

The Internet is only going to fuel more active participation by the public, asserts Freed.

I think cable TV and having all of that accessibility over the last 10 to 20 years, obviously, again, made us much more knowledgeable about what was going on inside of government and how our government was impacting us. Take that to the level of the Internet, where I can search all these sites [and] I can do it on my own free time.

The next generation of the Internet is already here, and Freed says some government agencies have already jumped on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, which the public seems to enjoy.

There are a couple of e-government Web sites . . . that are starting to do stuff with 2.0 technologies. . . . Generally those sites do well. The challenge that government sites always face is that the expectations that we have about an Internet experience are formed based on our experiences across all the sites on the Internet we might visit.

Freed says, because of this, customer satisfaction with government Web sites has improved, but is still not as high when compared to some sites that are run by private companies.

Some examples of sites customers liked? The Social Security Administration, some specific sites run by Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration’s homepage.

Overall, Freed says, there are always lessons to be learned about the value of the Web.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure — so you absolutely have to measure citizen satisfaction. You have to listen to your customers . . . to understand what’s driving their behavior. . . . The second message would be, there are a lot of best practices and the thing that government is great at . . . they are very good at sharing best practices so, if you’re out there and responsible for an agency Web site, reach out to your peers, find out what’s working, find out what’s not. There’s a lot of valuable information.

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In addition, Freed says managers should make sure those who work on the sites have the resources and money they need to get the job done.

It has benefit, not only for improving the information that government provides and the services government provides, which is one mission of the government, but also will allow them to actually lower costs.

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On the Web:

ForeSee Results – American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Government

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