Customer Satisfaction Survey
Working with the Department of the Interior's National Business Center Federal Consulting Group, government agencies use the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) survey to gauge their level of service and benchmark their performance. The ACSI also helps agencies focus on those processes, based on customer feedback, which will have the biggest impact on an agency's ability to deliver the highest quality products and services. In fiscal year 2015, the RRB conducted an ACSI survey of railroad employers on their dealings with the agency. This was the first time employers had been the subject of a survey, which covered direct contact with RRB personnel and various forms of electronic communication. The RRB earned a score of 77 in this survey, which compares very favorably with the overall ACSI score of 64 for the Federal government.
Customer Service Plan
The RRB's Customer Service Plan promotes the principles and objectives of customer-driven quality service agency-wide. An important part of the plan is to keep customers informed of how well the RRB is meeting timeliness standards. The RRB publicizes the Customer Service Plan and performance results and posts them in all of its field offices. The plan is reviewed and updated periodically based on agency experience, customer feedback and comparison with similar best-in-business models.
The agency has developed an index to measure the overall timeliness of customer service in four benefit areas: retirement applications; survivor applications; disability applications and payments; and railroad unemployment and sickness benefit applications and claims. In addition this composite indicator, based on a weighted average, allows for a more concise and meaningful presentation of its customer service efforts in these four areas. During fiscal year 2015, the overall benefit timeliness index was 98.8 percent. This means that the RRB provided benefit services within the timeframes promised in the Customer Service Plan 98.8 percent of the time. Performance and processing times during fiscal year 2015 were similar to the levels in fiscal year 2014. (The composite for 2014 was 98.9.) The RRB also met or exceeded eight out of ten customer service goals for the year in its Annual Performance Plan.
Reducing Improper Payments
The RRB developed an agency risk assessment plan in response to provisions of the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance. The objective was to evaluate payment outlays susceptible to improper payments by assessing risk for all of the benefit and non-benefit programs that the agency administers.
The agency completed risk assessments for both the Railroad Retirement Act and Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act programs, and also conducted an analysis of the programs for fiscal year 2014 as has bee done annually since fiscal year 2003. The RRB's Performance and Accountability Report for fiscal year 2015 (based on fiscal year 2104 data) includes the results of that analysis along with a summary of the a root causes of errors, a description of the actions taken to address and prevent improper payments, and projections of future improper payment levels. The information was also provided to OMB, along with an improper payments reduction outlook, a breakdown of the root causes, amounts, and percentages of improper payments for both programs in fiscal year 2014, and detail on recaptured overpayments. The review shows that the RRB does not have significant improper payments, as defined by OMB guidelines for implementing the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002. Risk assessments for non-benefit programs indicated that they were not susceptible to significant improper payments.
The RRB will continues to review its benefit payment programs to determine if the level of improper payments is significant. Ongoing activities aimed at improving the accuracy of the payments and reducing erroneous payments include automation enhancements, quality assurance reviews, and monitoring programs. This includes looking for additional operational improvements that will minimize improper payments and enhance recovery efforts.