Government Customer Service Improvement Act of 2013

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his time, the gentleman from North Carolina also, and I certainly want to thank Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and the staff, both the Democratic and Republican staff, for helping pass this bill out of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and all the work and the compromises we worked out to make sure that we got a bipartisan bill.

The primary goal of the Federal Government is to serve taxpayers. Currently, U.S. law does not require Federal agencies customer service standards, which is long overdue.

Every day taxpayers interact with the Federal Government on a regular basis, whether it is through the passport services to travel, student loans through the Direct Loan Program to pay for higher education, health insurance under Medicare to get benefits, or Social Security for retirement planning. All these services are vital to operate a good government, especially in times when Americans are relying more on these types of services.

Too often we hear veterans are waiting months to get critical medical services or Federal employees experience long waits for their retirement benefits. These are just two examples, but millions of Americans rely on Federal agencies for vital services, which is why we must usher in a new chapter to accelerate response time and overall performance for better customer experience.

With only one-third of Americans holding a favorable opinion of the Federal Government, according to a 2012 report from the Pew Research Center, this is a necessity that we must change. The bill is simple and necessary.

First of all, H.R. 1660 improves customer service standards across the board. It does this by requiring the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB, to develop performance standards to determine whether Federal agencies are providing high-quality customer service and improving service delivery to agency customers.

Second, the bill raises the bar for enhancing quality and access for customer service. This is accomplished by requiring agencies to collect information from their customers regarding the quality of service and ensures that there is customer feedback, which will be used to develop the standards.

This bill also requires the development of a customer service feedback system, the results of which must be included in annual performance reports. Just like the private sector strives to provide excellent customer service in business, the Federal Government should also embed better service to bring efficiency.

H.R. 1660 has no cost.

This bill also has precedent. We passed this last session, and now we are hoping that with enough time that we are passing this, we'll get it over to the Senate so we can get it passed.

This effort to examine agency customer service is also bicameral. Senator Warner and Senator Johnson dropped a companion bipartisan bill, as well.

H.R. 1660 seeks to operate a better Federal Government to provide the taxpayers--who fund them--better quality service, which they deserve.

I thank you for the time, and I encourage my colleagues to support and pass this bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source