U.S. citizen satisfaction of federal government services has dropped by 1.1 percent to 68.9 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, according to the 2018 ACSI Federal Government Report released Tuesday. The report noted that ACSI conducted interviews for the analysis before the government shutdown, nullifying the shutdown’s impact on the decline in satisfaction until the 2019 report.
According to the ACSI report, factors such as quality of information; customer service; timeliness and ease of procedures; and usefulness of government websites faced a decline in scores for 2018. The report also states that while Democrat satisfaction with the government declined, Republicans and Independents were more satisfied with the current administration and gave a higher score.
The Department of Defense and Department of the Interior both achieved a score of 78, exceeding the economy-wide ACSI national average of 77. The Commerce Department, Justice Department and State Department also achieved scores above the federal government’s overall score. Other government units that got top rankings are Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and Bureau of Consular Affairs which both got a score of 89. The Department of Housing and Urban Development received the lowest score of 57 among federal departments.
ACSI based the scores on interviews with 2,779 respondents that were chosen randomly and contacted via e-mail.