WASHINGTON, March. 16, 2006—The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Natural Resources Conservation Service Chief Bruce Knight today announced that
producers in several Conservation Security Program (CSP) pilot watersheds ranked
NRCS employees very high for professionalism and courteous service in carrying
out that program. Many respondents said they were satisfied with the services
they received after enrollment in the program.
“NRCS employees are the agency’s greatest strength and this national customer
satisfaction survey affirms our confidence in their service,” Knight said. “We
are proud of the score achieved during the Conservation Security Program’s first
year. I commend all our employees for their excellent service to our farmers and
ranchers.”
CSP, a voluntary conservation program, supports stewardship of private
agricultural lands by providing payments for maintaining and enhancing natural
resources. Payments to producers are based on three tiers of conservation
contracts. NRCS is in the midst of its third CSP signup, which ends March 31,
2006 in 60 watersheds nationwide.
According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), NRCS received an
overall score of 76 out of 100 for administering CSP, first established in 2004
in 18 pioneer watersheds in 22 states.
NRCS’ ranking for CSP is higher than the 2005 average national ACSI of 71 for
the federal government and right on par with earlier rankings for NRCS
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (75) and NRCS Wildlife Habitat
Incentives Program (77). The EQIP and WHIP customer satisfaction surveys were
conducted in 2004.
The ACSI identified four “drivers of satisfaction”—the CSP Self-Assessment
Workbook, the Interview with NRCS, Contract Review and Award Process and NRCS
Staff. Responses to questions regarding NRCS staff rated highest at 87, with
courteousness, professionalism, helpfulness and availability ranking in the high
80s and low 90s. Survey respondents relied heavily on NRCS employees to clarify
the program, including the application process, through interviews and
workshops.
ACSI arrived at its overall customer satisfaction score by conducting telephone
interviews—from September 12-16, 2005—with 250 producers from 13 of the 18
watersheds nationwide who were awarded CSP funding in 2004. Respondents were
asked how satisfied they were with the services provided by NRCS in CSP; to what
extent have the services provided by NRCS in CSP fallen short or exceeded their
expectations; and how well do they think CSP compares to the ideal way of
allocating funds. This is the first customer satisfaction survey for this new
program.
ACSI is the only uniform, national cross-industry measure of satisfaction with
the quality of goods and services available in the United States in the federal
government and the private sector. In 1999, the federal government began to use
ACSI to measure citizen satisfaction. More than 55 federal government agencies
have used ACSI to measure citizen satisfaction of more than 110 services and
programs. The index is produced by the University of Michigan in partnership
with the American Society for Quality and the CFI Group, an international
consulting firm.
Many federal agencies are using ACSI methodology to determine priorities for
improvement from the citizens’ perspective and to benchmark performance against
other government agencies and the private sector.
For more information about the American Customer Satisfaction Index results,
please visit
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/about/spa/index.html and scroll down to “Customer
Satisfaction.” For more information about Conservation Security Program, please
visit
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/csp.
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The Natural Resources
Conservation Service provides leadership in a partnership effort to help
people
conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment.
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