The customer may not always be right – but the hundreds of millions of Americans who are consumers of government services will have an easier time of it because of reforms to the way federal agencies operate, President Joe Biden promised with the signing of an executive order Monday.
The order includes 36 “customer experience” improvements in 17 federal agencies, many of them digital upgrades that bring the federal bureaucracy into the 21st century – or at least, the 20th century. Improvements include allowing retirees to go online to claim their Social Security benefits and manage Medicare health care and prescription drug plans.
Those who want to renew their passports will be able to do so on the Internet, instead of being forced to go to a post office in person and pay with a paper check. Taxpayers tired of waiting on hold for IRS support will be able to schedule a callback to get their questions answered.
Students who are Direct Loan borrowers can go to a single portal – StudentAid.gov – to apply for, manage and pay back their loans. Paperwork is also being streamlined for low-income people applying for aid as well as small business people and farmers seeking assistance and loans.
And for the more than 30 million people who change residence each year there will be one-stop shopping, wherein individuals can fill out a single federal form that is shared with the appropriate agencies and states. The 2 million people who change their names each year can do so without having to appear in person at a Social Security Administration office.
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“I know it sounds like a simple thing. I think it’s pretty consequential,” Biden said as he signed the executive order in the Oval Office, his Cabinet members standing behind him.
The reforms will “make government work more effectively” so that it’s “not as confusing,” Biden added.
In a historically partisan era, the moves are an effort to remind Americans of the nuts-and-bolts functions of government. While the public may be divided on matters such as abortion, taxation and immigration, nearly everyone has some kind of basic-services interaction with the federal government. And many Americans complain about the service.
Gallup polling shows that Americans have a dim view of the federal government: A combined 26% in an August 2021 survey had a very or somewhat positive view of the government, down from a combined 41% positive rating in August 2003.
The fact that this year’s numbers are not much different than those during Donald Trump’s presidency suggests that customer satisfaction is not closely aligned with who sits in the Oval Office. Last year, citizen satisfaction with the federal government continued a three-year slide, hitting its lowest point since 2015, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s Federal Government Report. The study had citizen satisfaction at 65.1 (out of 100), down 4.1 points from 2019.
Presidents have tried in varying ways to improve the federal government brand, says survey director Forrest Morgeson, an assistant professor of marketing in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.
“This is not a new phenomenon. Every administration tries to adopt some kind of initiative to improve citizens’ interactions with the government,” Morgeson says.
The problem, Morgeson notes, is that the federal government doesn’t have the resources for the state-of-the-art computers and technology the private sector uses. Biden’s executive order is aimed at improving some of that, including using better technology to speed up airport screening of passengers.
Democrats and Republicans have fairly similar views of the government, Morgeson says. Republican approval tends to drop when a Democrat is in the White House, he says, citing his research. With Democrats, approval increases when a Democrat is in power, as opposed to dropping when a Republican is president, he says.
Biden’s efforts to serve citizen consumers better is admirable – but unless there’s strong follow-through, people might not view their government more kindly, Morgeson says.
“These things only work if you can somehow incentivize these agencies” to make real, long-term changes, he says.
