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We have a new draft "brief" about e-mail response policies ready for comment: http://dowire.org/wiki/E-mail_Response_Policy And I just noticed this important U.S. Federal government effort: The group called the Citizen Service Level Interagency Committee (C- SLIC) seeks agency members to participate in drafting minimum performance levels such as hold time for citizens calling or response times for e-mail for federal agency citizen contact activities. It might be a good idea for this committee to survey citizens on their expectations. At a minimum, all e-mail to public-facing e-mail addresses like "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" or web contact form must send the citizen an e-mail receipt with a full copy of the message as received by the agency, assign a tracking number, and provide an estimated response time. The government should also be smart and give citizens the option to say, "I just want to know you received and read it. I don't need an individual reply." Steven Clift http://dowire.org From: Express [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Wood, Pat B Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: New Citizen Service Levels Interagency Committee--Would you like to participate? USA Services announces the formation of an interagency committee to draft proposed governmentwide criteria for citizen contact activities. The group called the Citizen Service Level Interagency Committee (C-SLIC) seeks agency members to participate in drafting minimum performance levels such as hold time for citizens calling or response times for e-mail for federal agency citizen contact activities. The group seeks participation from those with experience managing or overseeing telephone, e-mail, web chat, automated frequently asked question (FAQ) and other systems. Please contact James Vaughn at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 202-208-0554 if you are interested in participating or have further questions. Background information and committment Part of USA Services stated mission is to develop benchmarks by which agencies can measure progress on improving responsiveness to citizens. You're aware of the baselining, research and benchmarking we are undertaking and now we are ready to begin assembling an inter agency working group to devise a set of mutually acceptable service performance levels for citizen contact activities such as time to answer for phone calls and response time for e-mail. Below is some information on the type of members we are seeking and the commitment involved. We recognize that we need to involve a wide variety of disciplines, especially those with front line experience in these activities. The document we prepare will be similar to that prepared by the Inter-agency Committee on Government Information (ICGI) Web Standards report with suggested non mandate best practices. By working together, we hope to find those practices that both meet the needs of citizens and reflect the best practices of those already in place by many agencies. This document will give agencies a tool to use to provide quantifiable measurements of service. By setting suggested service performance levels we can objectively measure our impact. As experts in your field we depend on your input and participation to make this and other USA Services projects successful. What We Need in a Citizen Service Level Inter-agency Committee (C-SLIC) Member You are or know someone who is one of these two types: * A frontline staff or manager of one of the citizen communication services activities. This person will know the day-to-day management and can be the practical reality check for suggested best practices of service levels * A program or group manager that includes one or more of the activities. This person understands the connection between the activity and their agency mission as well as has knowledge of the budgeting or cost issues surrounding citizen contact activities These are the citizen contact activities we will focus on: o Phone/IVR o E-mail (web form and dedicated e-mail address) o FAQ systems (automated and static) o Web or embedded instant messaging (IM) o Bots and other emerging technologies We focus just on service level measurements or best practices that directly impact the citizen and not on those that affect the management or running of the activity. Private sector groups have done much work already and there is no point reinventing the wheel. What is the commitment? * Two in-person meetings, the kick off in late February or early March and the final report in September 2005. * Weekly 1 hour phone calls to review concepts and then actual wording of the proposed service levels from March ?July and then as needed after that. * Participation in threaded discussions for proposal of, comment on, debate of and wording of each proposal. This way it can be at a time best suited to your schedule. ICGI Working Group for web guidelines members generally spent 1-2 hours a week at most on this. If you can't serve as a full time member, we also require the services of advisors. People the group can turn to for advice and review of certain proposals. Please let me know if you will agree to serve as a working group member or advisor or provide us with the name and contact information of someone you think we should recruit. We need this group to be representative of agencies large and small. Our goal is to hold the first organizational meeting the week of February 28th depending upon the members schedule. We need nominations or confirmations back by COB Wednesday 2/16 so that we can schedule the kick off meeting. Thank you for your help and we look forward to a rewarding experience for everyone who participates. Forwarded by Patricia B. Wood Director of Communications Federal Consulting Group Department of the Treasury 1700 G St, NW Washington, DC 20552 (202) 906-7049 (202) 246-4680 (cell) [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.fcg.gov **************************************************************** * * * To SUBSCRIBE to this mailing list submit a new e-mail * * message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and enter in the body * * of the message: SUBSCRIBE EXPRESS-L firstname lastname * * (replace firstname and lastname with your name) * * * * To UNSUBSCRIBE to this mailing list submit a new e-mail * * message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and enter in the body * * of the message: SIGNOFF EXPRESS-L * * * * If you have QUESTIONS regarding CONTENT on this mailing * * list please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * If you have QUESTIONS regarding OPERATION of this mailing * * list please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * **************************************************************** ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. 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