Federal Customer Experience: OMB Has Taken Actions to Implement Cross-Agency Priority Goals

What GAO Found

The current administration's President's Management Agenda prioritizes improvements in federal customer experience, which is the public's perceptions of and overall satisfaction with interactions with an agency, product, or service. To pursue this priority, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) designated and worked with numerous High Impact Service Providers (HISPs)—federal entities that provide or fund high-impact customer facing services. According to OMB, 27 HISPs have reported customer feedback data. OMB staff said they continue to work with the remaining HISPs to support their efforts to collect and report customer experience feedback data. OMB also reported that 38 HISPs have completed assessments of their internal capacity for improving customer experience and will identify priority areas for improvement later this year.

OMB prioritized five customer life experiences for improvement—for example, the experiences of approaching retirement or recovering from a disaster. It then developed cross-agency teams to identify and implement related pilot projects for improving these customer life experiences. OMB generally addressed leading practices identified in GAO's prior work to support collaboration among these cross-agency teams.

OMB also generally addressed key considerations for implementing Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) goals (see figure) identified in prior GAO work. For example, as part of addressing the key consideration of identifying resources to support implementation, a federal customer experience management team was established within OMB. To use performance information, OMB developed a performance framework to assess progress toward CAP goals. It is also developing baseline data to measure customer trust, HISP capacity, and lessons learned from customer life experience pilot projects. OMB's performance framework can support its efforts to assess whether it is on track to improve federal customer experience by the end of the 4-year CAP goal period.

Assessment of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Actions on Customer Experience Against Key Considerations to Implement Cross-Agency Priority Goals (CAP) in the President's Management Agenda

Why GAO Did This Study

The 2021 President's Management Agenda identified federal customer experience as a priority area for improvement. To implement the priority area, OMB set two CAP goals, which are 4-year outcome-oriented federal priority goals required by the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010.

The first CAP goal focuses on improving customer experience for services designated by HISPs. The second CAP goal involves improving five key life experiences—e.g., retirement—that require members of the public to navigate services across multiple federal agencies.

GAO was asked to review OMB and selected federal agencies' efforts to improve federal customer experience. This report addresses (1) actions taken by OMB and selected HISPs to implement federal customer experience improvements; (2) how well OMB facilitated interagency collaboration related to the five customer life experiences; and (3) the extent to which OMB has overseen and assessed progress on CAP goals to improve federal customer experience.

GAO reviewed data and documentation obtained from OMB and selected agencies, and from Performance.gov, a federal website. GAO also interviewed OMB staff and selected agency officials. GAO used leading practices identified in prior GAO work to assess OMB efforts.

For more information, contact Dawn G. Locke at (202) 512-6806 or locked@gao.gov.