Office of Workers' Compensation Programs: Goals and Monitoring Are Needed to Further Improve Customer Communications
Abstract
This report is a testimony on the Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP). It is a review how OWCP communicates with injured federal workers, agencies who employ these individuals, and medical and other service providers who are involved in their treatment. In general, our review focused on how well OWCP's performance management system was used to respond to claimants' and other customers' inquiries, both over the telephone and in written correspondence. This statement responds to your request by describing how we conducted our review and what we found. To evaluate OWCP's system, we used criteria suggested by the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR). NPR performed an extensive study of high performance customer service organizations in the private sector and their best practices for providing telephone service. NPR stated that the level of service a customer receives should not vary significantly across an organization. NPR also found that model customer service organizations in the private sector generally follow three consistent approaches or best practices for telephone communications. first they set challenging goals for meeting callers' needs for timely and accurate information. Second, they collect credible performance data to measure progress in attaining those goals. Third, they continuously improve telephone service by using the performance data and results of periodic surveys of customers and stakeholders to determine levels of satisfaction.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 03, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA382710
Entities
People
- Michael Brostek
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office