If federal agencies can deliver a satisfactory experience to citizens who use their digital services, the likelihood of desired outcomes is increased. In other words, you have a better chance of having citizens do what you’d intended for them to do when it comes to digital services.

In the latest index, for example, highly satisfied website visitors were 89 percent more likely to use the website as a primary resource (versus a more costly channel like the contact center) and 59 percent more likely to put their trust behind the agency. For mobile, those that were highly satisfied with their experience were 84 percent more likely to return to the site or app and a whopping 124 percent more likely to recommend it to others. As mentioned often by the team that creates these reports, a great mobile experience matters!

So, what’s driving satisfaction across government sites? “Navigation” and “search” are top drivers of satisfaction in this quarter’s index, followed closely by “look and feel,” “functionality,” and “online transparency.” It’s important to note, online transparency (providing thorough, easy-to-find information on a site) has been proven to be a driver of increased trust in the overall agency. But each organization’s site is different, so it’s essential to prioritize improvements that will have the greatest impact on satisfaction to drive the outcomes that an organization desires.

Some additional details on this quarter’s index:

• Citizens will provide their opinion. Nearly 220,000 responses were collected for the Q2 2016 E-Gov Index. This demonstrates that citizens are willing and able to provide feedback to government site managers to help agencies and departments — with the use of ForeSee’s methodology — to determine which site improvements will have the greatest impact on future usage and recommendations.
• E-Gov beats overall government. E-government continues to outperform overall government in citizen satisfaction. Average citizen satisfaction with e-government is (75) versus 63.9, according to the ACSI Federal Government Report 2015 (released January 2016).
• Highlighting the sites with stellar performance. Once again, Social Security Administration leads the pack, with “Extra Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs” (socialsecurity.gov/i1020), “SSA Retirement Estimator” (ssa.gov/estimator), and “SSA iClaim” (socialsecurity.gov/applyonline) all coming in with scores of 91 for the quarter.
• Exceeding expectations. SSA was not the only organization meeting or exceeding the excellence threshold: 34 sites (33.7%) had scores of 80 or higher.
• Top FXI score gains. Top gainers for the quarter include American Battle Monuments Commission (abmc.gov), Department of Defense portal (defense.gov), FSIS main website (fsis.usda.gov), National Library of Medicine main website (nlm.nih.gov), NOAA Satellite and Information Service (nesdis.noaa.gov), and NOAA Tides and Currents.

Interested in learning more about why ForeSee is the gold standard in CX measurement for the public sector? Download your copy of the Q2 2016 ForeSee E-Government Satisfaction Index today.