WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) introduced the bipartisan Federal Agency Customer Experience Act in order to roll back federal rules that made it difficult for agencies to get feedback from the public concerning their satisfaction with agencies’ performance.
McCaskill and Lankford acted after several agencies pointed to federal regulations that made prevented them from requesting feedback from the public without going through a lengthy and difficult approval process. The Senators’ legislation eliminates this requirement while ensuring that any voluntary feedback will contribute to improved customer service.
“Most people think interacting with the federal government is unpleasant—but at the same time we’re making it difficult for agencies to ask the public how they can improve—it makes no sense,” McCaskill said. “This law will allow the federal government to better identify specific customer service issues and start to implement changes to make the government work better for the American people.”
“One of the federal government’s core responsibilities is to efficiently serve the American people,” said Lankford. “We must do more to increase federal customer service and remove unnecessary requirements that make basic services tedious and overly bureaucratic. If the American people have a problem with customer service from a federal agency, they should have a quick and easy way to let their government know there is a problem. The Federal Agency Customer Experience Act of 2017 will ensure the federal government will be more responsive to the American people. This legislation simplifies agencies’ efforts to receive voluntary customer feedback by eliminating an extensive and cumbersome interagency review process.”
A copy of McCaskill and Lankford’s legislation is available online HERE.
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