According to a report released Tuesday by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, our satisfaction with the federal government has hit an all-time low (at least since the company began collecting data for this index in 2007). The federal government now scores a 64.4 out of 100 in terms of satisfaction (the average across all industries is 75 out 100). This is the lowest score across the 40 different industries - including industries like airlines, cable companies and others - that the ACSI measures, with the exception of Internet service providers.
"Overall, the services of the federal government continue to deliver a level of customer satisfaction below the private sector," the report - in which ACSI interviewed 1,772 randomly selected people - concludes.
When asked what they specifically didn't like about the government, some Americans cited issues with the staff and customer service. Indeed, Americans are more annoyed with the government's customer service (specifically how courteous, helpful and professional the government staff are) than they were in 2013: customer service rankings for the government plummeted 6% from a year ago - from a score of 80 to a score of 75. While this sounds bad, ACSI Director David VanAmburg says that some of it has to do to with the fact that some agencies have fewer staff members now than in the past, which makes consumers more frustrated when trying to get something accomplished in a timely manner.
Plus, Americans say that the services the government provides aren't always easy to navigate or delivered in a timely manner - and were worse in 2014 than in years past (scores fell from 70 to 68 out of 100), as was the information provided to them by the government (scores fell from 71 to 69), which they say often lacks clarity and isn't accessible. The only area that Americans weren't less pleased with was, perhaps surprisingly, government websites, which while certainly not well-reviewed (72 out of 100) didn't see a fall in ratings from last year.
While no department within the federal government scores above the national average, some departments are more hated that others - with the Treasury getting the gold star as the most-hated. VanAmburg notes that this isn't surprising, as its public face is often the IRS, which we don't have to tell you, isn't very popular. That's followed closely by the Veterans Affairs department and the Health and Human Services Department - both of which may score fairly low because there is sometimes some controversy about people's eligibility for benefits from these organizations, which can anger consumers, he says.
But perhaps more disturbingly, customers may soon be even less satisfied with the government: "While there are exceptions to the general trend of lower customer satisfaction with government services, the challenge of maintaining high-quality service with fewer resources may affect even more services soon," says VanAmburg says. "For example, the wait time for callers to the IRS is projected to balloon even more than it did a year ago - possibly exceeding 30 minutes."
Comment: Maybe if the government spent as much time and money on servicing the people who fund its operation as they did bombing, looting, and pillaging various sovereign nations there wouldn't be so much angst by citizens having to deal with the federal government.