Notice2023-19071
Agency Information Collection Activities: Generic Clearance for Improving Customer Experience (OMB Circular A-11, Section 280 Implementation), 1601-0029
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
September 5, 2023
Issuing agencies
Homeland Security Department
Abstract
The Department of Homeland Security, DHS will submit the following information collection request (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act. DHS previously published this information collection request (ICR) in the Federal Register on June 23, 2023, for a 60-day public comment period. No comments were received by DHS. The purpose of this notice is to allow additional 30-days for public comments.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 88 Issue 170 (Tuesday, September 5, 2023)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 170 (Tuesday, September 5, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 60695-60698]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2023-19071]
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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
[Docket Number DHS-2023-0020]
Agency Information Collection Activities: Generic Clearance for
Improving Customer Experience (OMB Circular A-11, Section 280
Implementation), 1601-0029
AGENCY: Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
ACTION: 30-Day notice and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The Department of Homeland Security, DHS will submit the
following information collection request (ICR) to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with
the Paperwork Reduction Act. DHS previously published this information
collection request (ICR) in the Federal Register on June 23, 2023, for
a 60-day public comment period. No comments were received by DHS. The
purpose of this notice is to allow additional 30-days for public
comments.
DATES: Comments are encouraged and will be accepted until October 5,
2023.
[[Page 60696]]
This process is conducted in accordance with 5 CFR 1320.10.
ADDRESSES: Written comments and recommendations for the proposed
information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of
this notice to <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a>. Find this particular
information collection by selecting ``Currently under 30-day Review--
Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search function.
The Office of Management and Budget 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
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On September 11, 1993, President Clinton
issued Executive Order 12862, ``Setting Customer Service Standards''
which clearly define his vision that the Federal 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 <a href="https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/HCD-Discovery-Guide-Interagency-v12-1.pdf">https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/HCD-Discovery-Guide-Interagency-v12-1.pdf</a>. 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
[[Page 60697]]
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 groups that study
the most critical drivers of customer experience.
<bullet> 5 point Likert scale: I am satisfied with the service I
received from [Program/Service name].
<bullet> 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].
<bullet> Free response: Any additional feedback on your scores
above?
<bullet> 5 point Likert scale: My need was addressed OR My issue
was resolved. OR I found what I was looking for.
<bullet> 5 point Likert scale: It was easy to complete what I
needed to do.
<bullet> 5 point Likert scale: It took a reasonable amount of time
to do what I needed to do.
<bullet> 5 point Likert scale: I was treated fairly.
<bullet> 5 point Likert scale: Employees I interacted with were
helpful.
<bullet> 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
<a href="http://performance.gov">performance.gov</a>. 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:
<bullet> The collections are voluntary;
<bullet> 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;
<bullet> The collections are non-controversial and do not raise
issues of concern to other Federal agencies;
<bullet> 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;
<bullet> Personally identifiable information (PII) is collected
only to the extent necessary and is not retained;
<bullet> Information gathered is intended to be used for general
service improvement and program management purposes;
<bullet> 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 <a href="http://performance.gov">performance.gov</a>. Additionally, summaries of
customer research and user testing activities may be included in
public-facing customer journey maps and summaries.
<bullet> 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 information collected in these surveys will represent the
minimum burden necessary to evaluate customer experience with the
Agency's programs
[[Page 60698]]
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.
Activity and survey instructions will provide all necessary
assurances of confidentiality to the respondents. Although there is no
requirement for such an assurance in statute, the quality of this type
of information requires respondent candor and anonymity.
This is a no changes to the burden or information being collected.
The Office of Management and Budget 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: 1601-0029.
Frequency: Annually.
Affected Public: Individuals or household.
Number of Respondents: 2,001,500.
Total Burden Hours: 101,125.
Robert Porter Dorr,
Executive Director, Business Management Directorate.
[FR Doc. 2023-19071 Filed 9-1-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 9112-FL-P
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