(ACSI: Ann Arbor, Michigan) -- Citizen satisfaction with federal Web sites registered a slight improvement, according to the second quarter report from the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Government Satisfaction Index. The E-commerce and transactions category showed the greatest increase of any other category, nudging the E-Government Satisfaction Index by 0.4 percent to 73.7 on a 100-point scale and reversing last quarter’s drop. Although aggregate satisfaction with federal Web sites improved incrementally, it still lags the private sector, which continues to set the bar for online satisfaction. E-government scored 8.5 percent and 3.8 percent behind private sector E-commerce (80 percent) and E-business industries (76.5 percent), respectively.

Private sector E-commerce is one of the strongest performing sectors measured by the ACSI, and it still holds the edge over E-government transactional and E- commerce sites. But as more federal Web sites allow citizens to do business online with government, satisfaction is improving. On aggregate, the customer satisfaction score for sites that offer transactional or E-commerce capabilities rose 3.5 percent from last quarter to 76.8.

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