USDA’s CONSERVATION SECURITY PROGRAM RANKS HIGH AMONG PARTICIPATING FARMERS AND RANCHERS

Employees Receive High Marks for Professionalism, Courtesy, Availability

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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