Residents of Alaska, South
Dakota, Florida,
Maryland and New Hampshire are most satisfied by the
services their state government provides; Illinois, Connecticut, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Missouri make up the bottom 5
A majority of people in North Dakota left the DMV feeling "extremely
satisfied," while only 3% of Hawaiians felt the same
Despite recent investments, government
services lag 5-15 points behind other industries in terms of
customer satisfaction and trust
PROVO,
Utah and SEATTLE,
May 23,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Illinois is ranked lowest
by its residents for state government service, according to a new
report from Qualtrics. Fewer than half (49%) of Illinois residents who had received a state
service said they were satisfied. On the other end of the spectrum,
the study found that Alaska (72%)
has the highest overall satisfaction scores for state government
services. Across the country, federal services like Medicare, USPS,
and Social Security have the highest overall customer satisfaction
ratings while programs like the DMV, SNAP and state tax services
scored the lowest.
Government agencies provide social safety benefits, health care,
licensing, and myriad other services to residents across the US.
But customer service from government agencies has traditionally
lagged behind service in the private sector. Increasingly,
consumers expect a higher level of service from government offices.
President Biden issued an executive order in 2021 requiring federal
agencies to improve their customer service.
Qualtrics asked nearly 20,000 people who have recently used at
least one of nine state and federal government services about their
experience, creating a new benchmark for customer experience across
a range of state and federal services.
Heading into an election year, state and federal government
leaders are trying to gain the trust of their constituents.
Improving overall customer satisfaction scores has a major impact
on citizens' view of their local government. People who were
"extremely satisfied" with government services are 8.5x more likely
to say they trust agencies will do the right thing, 9.0x to say
government service providers care about them as a person and 7.5x
to say agency leaders hold themselves to high ethical
standards.
"Top-performing government agencies utilize customer insights to
pinpoint crucial customer needs, wants, and desires, and invest in
cross-channel improvements that not only meet but exceed their
expectations," said Spencer Steed,
Senior Vice President of Public Sector at Qualtrics. "The state
services that are leading the way have undertaken the important
work of listening to their customers through a variety of
structured and unstructured channels to identify the most effective
ways to make government easier to work with, the holy grail for
customer satisfaction."
Medicare, Post Office top the satisfaction list
Generally, federal services produced more happy customers than
state services, according to the research. Of the nine government
services included in the study, residents were most satisfied with
federal services like Medicare and the USPS and least
satisfied with state services tax and SNAP.
The research shows that satisfaction did not vary greatly
between online and in-person service experiences, but the more a
person has to interact during a service experience, the less
satisfied they tend to be with that experience. For example,
government customers who had to switch between a website and
in-person channels had lower overall scores.
Satisfaction with the Department of Motor Vehicles – perhaps the
most notorious agency for poor experiences, varied widely depending
on the state. Nearly nine out of 10 (88%) North Dakota residents who visited the DMV in
the last year said they were at least somewhat satisfied. In
Iowa, 41% of respondents said they
believe the DMV "cares about me as a person." (Only 1% agreed with
that statement in Hawaii, the
lowest-ranked DMV experience).
Satisfaction with government services is strongly correlated
with household income and age, but not political ideology
Older residents and those with a higher income tended to be more
satisfied with the services they received, and have a higher trust
in government.
- Higher-income households (>$100k) have satisfaction levels 18% higher than
lower-income households (<$25k).
- White customers generally have higher levels of satisfaction
(62%) than Hispanic (55%), Black (57%) or customers of another race
or two or more races (54%).
- Qualtrics research also shows a similar "satisfaction
stratification" based on age. There is a 19 percentage point
difference between 18-24-year-olds and those older than 59+.
Customers are on average 2.5p.p. more satisfied with every five
year increase in age.
Political affiliation – or whether Democrats or Republicans were
in the governor's mansion – did not correlate with customer
satisfaction. Looking at the 2020 presidential vote, the difference
in satisfaction with state services between Biden voters (64%) and
Trump voters (60%) is small. Qualtrics research found only small
correlations in satisfaction with government services based on
party in power, region, urbanity vs. rurality, or demographic
mix.
"Our research shows that even in today's politically polarized
environment, customers base their trust largely on their most
recent experiences with government," said Jill Leyden, Vice President, Public Sector
Strategy and Solutions at Qualtrics. "This should give public
sector leaders motivation to engineer world-class experiences for
their customers, who will continue to expect high levels of service
for their taxpayer dollars."
STATE SATISFACTION RANK
State
|
Satisfaction
|
Rank
|
|
State
|
Satisfaction
|
Rank
|
Alaska
|
72 %
|
1
|
|
Pennsylvania
|
59 %
|
27
|
South Dakota
|
72 %
|
2
|
|
Kansas
|
59 %
|
28
|
Florida
|
70 %
|
3
|
|
Arkansas
|
59 %
|
29
|
Maryland
|
67 %
|
4
|
|
Utah
|
58 %
|
30
|
New
Hampshire
|
66 %
|
5
|
|
Wisconsin
|
58 %
|
31
|
North Dakota
|
65 %
|
6
|
|
Maine
|
58 %
|
32
|
Montana
|
65 %
|
7
|
|
Wyoming
|
58 %
|
33
|
Delaware
|
65 %
|
8
|
|
Oklahoma
|
57 %
|
34
|
District of
Columbia
|
64 %
|
9
|
|
Nebraska
|
57 %
|
35
|
Indiana
|
64 %
|
10
|
|
Ohio
|
57 %
|
36
|
Minnesota
|
64 %
|
11
|
|
New Mexico
|
57 %
|
37
|
Washington
|
64 %
|
12
|
|
Texas
|
56 %
|
38
|
Arizona
|
63 %
|
13
|
|
Rhode Island
|
56 %
|
39
|
Virginia
|
63 %
|
14
|
|
North
Carolina
|
56 %
|
40
|
Colorado
|
63 %
|
15
|
|
West
Virginia
|
55 %
|
41
|
South
Carolina
|
63 %
|
16
|
|
Kentucky
|
55 %
|
42
|
Oregon
|
63 %
|
17
|
|
Vermont
|
55 %
|
43
|
Nevada
|
63 %
|
18
|
|
Michigan
|
55 %
|
44
|
California
|
62 %
|
19
|
|
Idaho
|
54 %
|
45
|
Alabama
|
60 %
|
20
|
|
Louisiana
|
54 %
|
46
|
Iowa
|
60 %
|
21
|
|
Missouri
|
54 %
|
47
|
Georgia
|
60 %
|
22
|
|
Mississippi
|
54 %
|
48
|
New Jersey
|
59 %
|
23
|
|
Hawaii
|
53 %
|
49
|
Tennessee
|
59 %
|
24
|
|
Connecticut
|
51 %
|
50
|
Massachusetts
|
59 %
|
25
|
|
Illinois
|
49 %
|
51
|
New York
|
59 %
|
26
|
|
|
|
|
Additional Information
To learn more, download the full eBook and read the Qualtrics
blog post.
Methodology
The data for this report comes from a study of state and federal
government customers that have used at least one of several
services over the past 12 months. Qualtrics Government
conducted this research in December
2023 through January 2024,
sampling 14,605 state customers and 4,985 federal customers.
Respondents represent all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with minimum sample size
thresholds to ensure state-by-state comparisons. Analysis included
weighting at the regional level to ensure adequate representation
of demographic groups.
About Qualtrics
Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management
category, is a cloud-native software platform that empowers
organizations to deliver exceptional experiences and build deep
relationships with their customers and employees. With insights
from Qualtrics, organizations can identify and resolve the greatest
friction points in their business, retain and engage top talent,
and bring the right products and services to market. Nearly 20,000
organizations around the world use Qualtrics' advanced AI to
listen, understand, and take action. Qualtrics uses its vast
universe of experience data to form the largest database of human
sentiment in the world. Qualtrics is co-headquartered in
Provo, Utah and Seattle. To learn more, please visit
qualtrics.com.
Contact: press@qualtrics.com
View original content to download
multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/these-state-governments-offer-the-best-customer-service-302153760.html
SOURCE Qualtrics, LLC