(ACSI: Ann Arbor, Michigan) -- According to a recently released report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, U.S. citizens are less satisfied with federal government services than they are with private-sector services. In aggregate, citizen satisfaction with the federal government is 67.8 on ACSI’s 100-point scale, 11 percent lower than the National ACSI (75.2). Private-sector services score 74.

“Citizens expect more from government,” says Claes Fornell, head of ACSI at the University of Michigan and author of The Satisfied Customer: Winners and Losers in the Battle for Buyer Preference (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). “The federal government should be concerned when satisfaction is on par with airlines and cable TV.”

The U.S. government receives fewer complaints on average than the private sector, and ACSI data show that federal government agencies could do a much better job handling the complaints they do receive. Only 9.1 percent of federal-agency customers complained, compared to 14.3 percent in the private sector. Complaint rates for cable televison (44 percent), wireless telephone service (34 percent), and banks (27 percent) were much higher, but the federal government scores much lower in its ability to handle complaints.

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