[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 404 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 404

To require the establishment of customer service standards for Federal 
                               agencies.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 11, 2007

 Mr. Cuellar introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
              Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To require the establishment of customer service standards for Federal 
                               agencies.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Federal Customer Service Enhancement 
Act''.

SEC. 2. DEVELOPMENT OF PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND STANDARDS FOR CUSTOMER 
              SERVICE PROVIDED BY FEDERAL AGENCIES.

    (a) Requirement.--
            (1) Performance measures and standards.--The Comptroller 
        General and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget 
        shall jointly develop--
                    (A) performance measures to determine whether 
                Federal agencies are providing high quality customer 
                service; and
                    (B) standards to be met by Federal agencies in 
                order to provide high quality customer service.
            (2) Requirement to take into account certain information.--
        Such standards shall be developed after taking into account the 
        information collected by Federal agencies under subsection (b).
    (b) Customer Service Input.--The head of each Federal agency shall 
collect information from its customers regarding the quality of those 
services. The information shall be collected through a survey, focus 
groups, or such other appropriate methods as may be approved by the 
Comptroller General. Not later than one year after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the head of each Federal agency shall submit to 
the Comptroller General a report on the information collected.

SEC. 3. IMPLEMENTATION OF CUSTOMER SERVICE STANDARDS.

    (a) Customer Relations Representative.--The head of each Federal 
agency shall designate an employee to be the customer relations 
representative of the agency. Such representative shall be responsible 
for implementing the customer service standards developed under section 
2 and the agency requirements under subsection (b).
    (b) Agency Standards.--Subject to subsection (c), the head of each 
Federal agency, acting through its customer relations representative, 
shall prescribe regulations to implement the customer service standards 
developed under section 2 within the agency. The regulations shall 
include specific principles of customer service applicable to that 
agency and shall be available on the agency's public website.
    (c) Approval by Director.--The regulations developed under 
subsection (b) may be prescribed only after approval by the Director of 
the Office of Management and Budget.

SEC. 4. INSPECTIONS AND REPORTS BY GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE.

    (a) Inspections.--The Comptroller General shall inspect each 
Federal agency each year and analyze each such agency's customer 
service performance to determine whether it is meeting the standards 
for customer service developed under section 2.
    (b) Reports to Agencies.--After inspecting a Federal agency 
pursuant to subsection (a), the Comptroller General shall annually 
provide to the agency a report on its customer service performance.
    (c) Report to Congress.--The Comptroller General shall annually 
submit to the Committee on Government Reform of the House of 
Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs of the Senate a report on the performance of customer service 
by Federal agencies.

SEC. 5. AWARDS FOR EXEMPLARY CUSTOMER SERVICE.

    The Comptroller General may give an award to a Federal agency to 
recognize the provision of exemplary customer service by the agency, as 
determined by the Comptroller General based on an inspection under 
section 4 or such other evaluation determined appropriate by the 
Comptroller General.

SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act:
            (1) The term ``customer'', with respect to a Federal 
        agency, means any individual or non-Federal Government entity 
        to which the agency provides services.
            (2) The term ``Federal agency'' has the meaning given the 
        term ``Executive agency'' by section 105 of title 5, United 
        States Code, except that the term does not include an agency if 
        the President determines that this Act should not apply to the 
        agency for national security reasons.
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