[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 96 (Monday, May 18, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 29733-29736]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-10546]
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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
[Docket Number DHS-2020-0019]
Agency Information Collection Activities: Generic Clearance for
Improving Customer Experience (OMB Circular A-11, Section 280
Implementation)
AGENCY: Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
ACTION: 60-Day Notice and request for comments; New Collection, 1601-
NEW.
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SUMMARY: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as part of its
continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, is
announcing an opportunity for public comment on a new proposed
collection of information by the Agency. Under the Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1995 (PRA), Federal Agencies are required to publish notice in
the Federal Register concerning each proposed collection of
information, and to allow 60 days for public comment in response to the
notice. This notice solicits comments on new collection proposed by the
Agency.
DATES: Comments are encouraged and will be accepted until July 17,
2020. This process is conducted in accordance with 5 CFR 1320.1.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by docket number Docket
Number DHS-2020-0019, at:
[cir] Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.
Please follow the instructions for submitting comments.
Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name
and docket number Docket Number DHS-2020-0019. All comments received
will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including
any personal information provided.
Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or
comments received, go to http://www.regulations.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On September 11, 1993, President Clinton
issued Executive Order 12862, ``Setting Customer Service Standards''
which clearly define his vision that the Federal
[[Page 29734]]
agencies will put the people first. Executive Order 12862 directs
Federal agencies to provide service to the public that matches or
exceeds the best service available in the private sector. Section 1(b)
of Executive Order 12862 requires government agencies to ``survey
customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and
their level of satisfaction with existing services'' and Section 1(e)
requires agencies ``survey front-line employees on barriers to, and
ideas for, matching the best in business.''
On March 30, 2016, President Obama established the Core Federal
Services Council, which again emphasized the need to deliver world-
class customer service to the American people. The Council, composed of
the major high-volume, high-impact Federal programs that provide
transactional services directly to the public, were encouraged ``to
improve the customer experience by using public and private sector
management best practices, such as conducting self-assessments and
journey mapping, collecting transactional feedback data, and sharing
such data with frontline and other staff.''
In March 2018, the Administration of President Trump launched the
President's Management Agenda (PMA) and established new Cross-Agency
Priority (CAP) Goals. Excellent service was established as a core
component of the mission, service, stewardship model that frames the
entire PMA, embedding a customer-focused approach in all of the PMA's
initiatives. This model was also included in the 2018 update of the
Federal Performance Framework in Circular A-11, ensuring `excellent
service' as a focus in future agency strategic planning efforts. The
PMA included a CAP Goal on Improving Customer Experience with Federal
Services, with a primary strategy to drive improvements within 25 of
the nation's highest impact programs. This effort is supported by an
interagency team and guidance in Circular A-11 requiring the collection
of customer feedback data and increasing the use of industry best
practices to conduct customer research.
These Presidential actions and requirements establish an ongoing
process of collecting customer insights and using them to improve
services. This new request will enable the Department of Homeland
Security (hereafter ``the Agency'') to act in accordance with OMB
Circular A-11 Section 280 to ultimately transform the experience of its
customers to improve both efficiency and mission delivery, and increase
accountability by communicating about these efforts with the public.
The Agency will collect, analyze, and interpret information
gathered through this generic clearance to identify services'
accessibility, navigation, and use by customers, and make improvements
in service delivery based on customer insights gathered through
developing an understanding of the user experience interacting with
Government.
For the purposes of this request, ``customers'' are individuals,
businesses, and organizations that interact with a Federal Government
agency or program, either directly or via a Federal contractor.
``Service delivery'' or ``services'' refers to the multitude of
diverse interactions between a customer and Federal agency such as
applying for a benefit or loan, receiving a service such as healthcare
or small business counseling, requesting a document such as a passport
or social security card, complying with a rule or regulation such as
filing taxes or declaring goods, utilizing resources such as a park or
historical site, or seeking information such as public health or
consumer protection notices.
Under this request, three types of activities will be conducted to
generate customer insights:
Customer Research (E.g., User Persona and Journey Map Development):
A critical first component of understanding customer experience is to
develop customer personas and journey maps. This process enables the
Agency to more deeply understand the customer segments they serve and
to organize the processes customers interact with throughout their
engagement with the Federal entity to accomplish a task or meet a need.
In order to adequately capture the perspective of the customer and the
barriers or supports that exist as they navigate these journeys, it is
necessary to directly interact with customers rather than relying
solely upon the Agency's stated policy of how a process should work or
employees' interpretation of how services are delivered. This can occur
through a variety of information collection mechanisms that include
focus groups, individual intercept interviews at a service site,
shadowing a user as they navigate a Federal service and documenting
their reactions and frustrations, customer free-response comment cards,
or informal small discussion groups.
Regardless of the format, the Agency will apply Human Centered
Design (HCD) Discovery methods to generate personas and journey maps,
ultimately identifying customer insights. An approach to recruiting
participants, resources for preparing and structuring interviews, and a
consent form for interviewees can be found at https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/HCD-Discovery-Guide-Interagency-v12-1.pdf. This document is
also included in the package.
Insights documented, summarized and presented in customer personas
and journey maps can then be shared across the program, the Agency,
other Federal, State, and Local government stakeholders and even with
the public to validate and discuss common themes identified. These
products can be used as ``indicator lights'' for where more rigorous
qualitative and quantitative research can be conducted to improve
Federal service delivery.
Publicly shared personas and journey maps will include language
that qualifies their use (see question #16), and high-level, non-
identifying descriptive statistics of the population(s) interviewed to
develop it (ex. ``25 Service members that transitioned to civilian
employment within the last decade, 14 female, 11 male, 21 enlisted and
4 officers) to ensure that the perspective represented is understood.
Quotes or insights will never be associated with an actual individual
unless they have signed a release form (see link above for template)
and this was included in the specific collection request. Customer
Feedback (Satisfaction Survey): Surveys to be considered under this
generic clearance will only include those surveys modeled on the OMB
Circular A-11 CX Feedback survey to improve customer service by
collecting feedback at a specific point during a customer journey. This
could include upon submitting a form online on a Federal website,
speaking with a call center representative, paying off a loan, or
visiting a Federal service center.
In an effort to develop comparable, government-wide scores that
will enable cross-agency or industry benchmarking (when relevant) and a
general indication of an agency's overall customer satisfaction, OMB
Circular A-11 Section 280 requires high impact services to measure
their touchpoint/transactional performance in as a real-time manner as
possible, with respect to satisfaction and confidence/trust using the
following questions, without modification. Responses will typically be
assessed on a 5-point Likert scale (1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree)). These questions align to drivers of experience
developed in consultation with leading organizations in customer
experience both in the private sector and industry
[[Page 29735]]
groups that study the most critical drivers of customer experience.
5 point Likert scale: I am satisfied with the service I
received from [Program/Service name].
5 point Likert scale: This interaction increased my
confidence in [Program/Service name]. OR I trust [Agency/Program/
Service name] to fulfill our country's commitment to [relevant
population].
Free response: Any additional feedback on your scores
above?
5 point Likert scale: My need was addressed OR My issue
was resolved. OR I found what I was looking for.
5 point Likert scale: It was easy to complete what I
needed to do.
5 point Likert scale: It took a reasonable amount of time
to do what I needed to do.
5 point Likert scale: I was treated fairly.
5 point Likert scale: Employees I interacted with were
helpful.
Free response: Any additional feedback for [Program/
Service name]?
The surveys shall include no more than 15 questions in total. The
Agency may add a few additional questions to those listed above to
clarify type of service received, inquiry type, service center
location, or other program-specific questions that can help program
managers to filter and make use of the feedback data.
As part of the Customer Experience CAP goal's strategy to increase
transparency to drive accountability, the feedback data collected
through the A-11 Standard Feedback survey is meant to be shared with
the public. This collection is part of the government-wide effort to
embed standardized customer metrics within high-impact programs to
create government-wide performance dashboards. Data collected from the
questions listed above will be submitted by the Agency to OMB at a
minimum quarterly for updating of customer experience dashboards on
performance.gov. This dashboard will also include the total volume of
customers that passed through the transaction point at which the survey
was offered, the number of customers the survey was presented to, the
number of responses, and the mode of presentation and response (online
survey, in-person, post-call touchtone, mobile, email). This will help
to qualify the data's representation by showing both the response rate
and total number of actual responses.
User Testing of Services and Digital Products: Agencies should
continually review, update and refine their service delivery, including
communication materials, processes, supporting reference materials, and
digital products associated with a Federal program. This often requires
``field testing'' program informational materials, process updates,
forms, or digital products (such as websites or mobile applications) by
interacting with past, existing, or future customers and soliciting
feedback. These activities can include cognitive laboratory studies,
such as those used to refine questions on a program form to ensure
clarity, demo kiosks at a service center where customers can provide
informal feedback while waiting for a service, or more formally
scheduled in-person observation testing (e.g., website or software
usability tests). These information collection activities are more
specific than broad customer research and related to a particular
artifact/product of a Federal program. As such, there will be a more
structured interview/set of questions than more open-ended customer
research. Findings from these activities are meant to support the
design and implementation of Federal program services and digital
products, and may only be shared in an anonymized/in aggregate if a
particular insight is useful to include as part of a customer persona,
journey map, or common lesson learned for improving service delivery.
The Agency will only submit under this generic clearance if it
meets the following conditions:
The collections are voluntary;
The collections are low-burden for respondents (based on
considerations of total burden hours or burden-hours per respondent)
and are low-cost for both the respondents and the Federal Government;
The collections are non-controversial and do not raise
issues of concern to other Federal agencies;
Any collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions
from respondents who have experience with the program or may have
experience with the program in the near future;
Personally identifiable information (PII) is collected
only to the extent necessary and is not retained;
Information gathered is intended to be used for general
service improvement and program management purposes.
Upon agreement between OMB and the agency all or a subset
of information may be released as part of A-11, Section 280
requirements only on performance.gov. Additionally, summaries of
customer research and user testing activities may be included in
public-facing customer journey maps and summaries.
Additional release of data must be done coordinated with
OMB.
This clearance will help the Agency to establish a process where
customer experience is regularly monitored and measured. The results
will assist the Agency in the planning and decision-making processes to
improve the quality of the Agency's products and services.
Results from feedback activities and surveys will be used to
measure against established baseline standards and for measuring the
Agency's progress toward defined goals.
There are neither legal nor technical obstacles to the use of
technology in these information collection activities. The
determination to use technology, and which technology to use, will be
based on the type of information collected and the utility and the
availability of specific technology to each respondent in a proposed
customer research activity or feedback survey.
The Agency will work to ensure the streamlining of all customer
research and feedback surveys under this clearance. The Agency will
also work to reduce existing customer feedback surveys and questions
into alignment with the A-11 Standard CX Feedback survey as part of a
coordinated Agency-wide customer program. The information to be
supplied on these surveys will not be duplicated on any other
information collection.
The information collected in these surveys will represent the
minimum burden necessary to evaluate customer experience with the
Agency's programs and processes. The Agency will minimize the burden on
respondents by sampling as appropriate, asking for readily available
information, and using short, easy-to-complete information collection
instruments.
Without regular mechanisms for collecting and generating customer
insights, the Agency is not able to provide the public with the highest
level of service. These activities will be coordinated to ensure that
most individual respondents will not be asked to respond to more than
one survey instrument per transaction or to participate in more than
one qualitative feedback or testing activity.
These surveys will be consistent with all the guidelines in 5 CFR
1320.5, especially those provisions in subsection (g) which require
that a statistical survey be designed to produce results that can be
generalized to the universe of study. There are no special
circumstances that would cause this information collection to be
conducted in an unusual or intrusive manner. All participation will be
voluntary. Should the Agency need to deviate from the requirements
outlined in 5 CFR 1320,
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individual justification will be provided to OMB on a case-by-case
basis.
No attempt will be made to generalize the findings from these three
groups of activities to be nationally representative or statistically
valid. They are meant to compliment and help to contextualize
performance and evaluation data as part of a three-pronged approach to
understanding Federal program implementation and opportunities for
improvement (Performance, Evaluation, and ``Feedback'' data \1\).
Customer Research: Insights gleaned from qualitative customer
research may be presented publicly in the format of a conceptual user
persona or customer journey map. Customer research can take anywhere
from 6 weeks for a short sprint to a full fiscal year, depending on the
specific project. The Agency expects most journey mapping efforts to
last approximately 6 months, with a user persona and journey maps ready
for feedback (both from internal and external to government
stakeholders) within one month of completing customer research.
Publicly available Journey maps will include specific language to
contextualize their use and will be included in specific requests. This
language can include something like:
What should I know about journey maps?
Journey maps are living documents--continually refined and
revisited. There is never a ``final'' version, and these maps are meant
to serve as a summary of the voices of actual customers of U.S.
Government services. A map may not precisely document the way a
Government program is meant to be navigated, accessed, or used. It
might not capture every government program or resource available to a
customer segment.
However, it is the product of a qualitative research approach to
gather insights from customers' actual experiences. These findings can
help us to identify areas for high-impact improvements across delivery
channels and organizational silos.
Customer Feedback: Once touchpoint surveys are implemented at
transaction points along the customer journey interacting with Federal
services, data from the A-11 Standard CX Feedback survey will be
submitted to OMB quarterly for review and publication in a summary
dashboard on performance.gov.
This data will include:
Specific transaction point at which the survey was
administered
Total volume of customers that interacted at this transaction
point during the given quarter
Total volume of customers that were presented the survey
Total number of customers who completed the survey
Mode(s) of collection (ex. online, over mobile, over the
phone, paper form)
Specific survey instrument that shows the Agency's wording of
standard A-11 CX Feedback survey
Distribution of the responses across the 5 point Likert scale
for each of the standard questions
The purpose of collecting volume and response numbers is to share
customer feedback measures in context of the response rate and total
volume of responses to qualify interpretation of the CX feedback data.
Testing of Services and Digital Products: Similar to Customer
Research, this can range from a short two-day rapid feedback from users
within an Agile product development sprint or longer effort to gather
more extensive feedback from multiple physical locations.
DHS is particularly interested in comments which:
1. Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is
necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency,
including whether the information will have practical utility;
2. Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of
the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the
methodology and assumptions used;
3. Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to
be collected; and
4. Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those
who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated,
electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or
other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic
submissions of responses.
Analysis
Agency: Department of Homeland Security DHS.
Title: Generic Clearance for Improving Customer Experience (OMB
Circular A-11, Section 280 Implementation).
OMB Number: 1601-NEW.
Frequency: On Occasion.
Affected Public: Individuals.
Number of Respondents: 2,001,550.
Estimated Time per Respondent: 3 mins or up to 2 hours.
Total Burden Hours: 101,125.
Dated: May 12, 2020.
Melissa Bruce,
Executive Director, Business Management Office.
[FR Doc. 2020-10546 Filed 5-15-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 9110-9B-P