Improving Customer Service Through Effective Performance Management

This paper, Improving Customer Service Through Effective Performance Management, describes how agencies can use their employee performance management systems as tools to help them reach the customer services goals they've set under Executive Order 12862 and the Results Act. Throughout the paper references to performance management and its component processes will apply at the individual or team level unless otherwise noted. The terms "standard" and "goal" are also used throughout this paper. On September 7, 1993, President Clinton set the Federal Government on the path to high-quality customer service by issues Executive Order 12862, "Setting Customer Services Standards (see Appendix 1). Through this order, the President has set the goal for Federal agencies to deliver customer services that equals the best in the business. Agency response to the President's order is described in Putting Customers First: Standards for Serving the American People, a Report of the National Performance Review (NPR). This NPR report published in September 1994, presents more than 1,500 customer service standards, representing goals and standards set by more than 100 Federal Agencies. On March 22, 1995, the President again focused attention on improving customer service when he issued a memorandum for heads of executive departments and agencies that addressed the second phase of reinventing government (see Appendix 2). In that memo, he advises agencies to integrate customer service measure with other performance initiatives and to align employee appraisal and recognition programs with a customer focus. A concern about the quality of service to its customers is not new in the Government. The statute that sets forth requirements for employee performance appraisal at section 4302(b) of title 5, United States Code, specifically mentions "the extent of courtesy demonstrated to the public" as a possible criterion for evaluating job performance. Another requirement for agencies to set goals comes for the Government Performance and Results Act (the Result Act) of 1993. The Results Act requires agencies to develop organizational performance plans, establish performance goals that are objective and measurable, establish performance indicators to be used in measuring outputs, service levels, and outcomes of each program, and submit performance reports to the Office of Management and Budget. The organizational performance management system established at the agency level through the Results Act is similar to the employee performance management system agencies establish under Government wide regulation in 5 CFR 430. Both include establishing performance plans, setting goals, developing measurement systems, and assessing performance. Because individual performance management plans should align individual and team performance goals to the goals of the agency, both Executive Order 12862 and the Results Act should have a significant effect on agency performance management programs.