[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5402 Introduced in House (IH)]

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115th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5402

To require the establishment of Federal customer service standards, to 
    improve the service and customer experience provided by Federal 
                   agencies, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 22, 2018

Mr. Loudermilk (for himself and Mr. Connolly) introduced the following 
 bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government 
                                 Reform

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To require the establishment of Federal customer service standards, to 
    improve the service and customer experience provided by Federal 
                   agencies, and for other purposes.

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

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

    (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Government 
Customer Service Accountability and Improvement Act of 2018''.
    (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act is as 
follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Findings; sense of Congress.
Sec. 3. Definitions.
Sec. 4. Development of customer experience standards.
Sec. 5. Service Improvement and Accountability Unit Pilot Program.
Sec. 6. Effective date.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    (a) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Federal Government serves the people of the United 
        States and should seek to continually improve public services.
            (2) The people of the United States deserve a Federal 
        Government that provides efficient, effective, and high-quality 
        services across multiple channels.
            (3) Many agencies, offices, programs, and Federal employees 
        provide excellent service to individuals, however, many 
        functions of the Federal Government do not provide the customer 
        service experience that individuals have come to expect from 
        the private sector.
            (4) The lack of Federal Government customer service is an 
        inveterate occurrence which has been attempted to be addressed 
        through the actions of previous administrations including the 
        Executive Order 12862, ``Setting Customer Service Standards,'' 
        signed September 11, 1993, by President William J. Clinton and 
        Executive Order 13571, ``Streamlining Service Delivery and 
        Improving Customer Service,'' signed April 27, 2011, by 
        President Barack H. Obama.
            (5) According to the 2016 American Customer Satisfaction 
        Index, the Federal Government ranks among the bottom of all 
        industries in the United States in customer satisfaction.
            (6) Providing quality services to individuals improves the 
        confidence of the people of the United States in their 
        Government. Such quality service is a necessary factor for 
        agencies to fulfill their specific and clearly defined 
        missions.
            (7) Improving service to individuals requires agencies to 
        work across organizational boundaries, leverage technology, 
        collect and share standardized data, and develop customer-
        centered mindsets and service strategies.
    (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that all 
agencies should strive to provide high-quality, courteous, effective, 
and efficient services to the people of the United States and seek to 
measure, collect, report, and use metrics relating to the experience of 
individuals interacting with agencies to continually improve services 
to the people of the United States.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act:
            (1) Administrator.--The term ``Administrator'' means the 
        Administrator of General Services.
            (2) Agency.--The term ``agency''--
                    (A) has the meaning given that term under section 
                3502 of title 44, United States Code; and
                    (B) does not include an agency the President 
                excludes for national security reasons.
            (3) Customer.--The term ``customer'', with respect to an 
        agency, means any individual or entity that is directly served 
        by an agency, including a Congressional office.
            (4) Customer experience.--The term ``customer experience'' 
        means the experience of an individual with an agency related to 
        any service the agency is required to perform in accordance 
        with the mission of the agency that requires personal 
        assistance, interaction, or accessibility of the services and 
        information provided by the agency.
            (5) Director.--The term ``Director'' means the Director of 
        the Office of Management and Budget.

SEC. 4. DEVELOPMENT OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STANDARDS.

    (a) Selection of Certain Agencies by OMB.--Not later than 90 days 
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director shall select 
certain agencies (including at a minimum the Department of Veterans 
Affairs, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Internal Revenue 
Service) to develop customer experience standards and performance plans 
for that agency.
    (b) Agency Standards and Performance Plans.--
            (1) In general.--Not later than 6 months after the date on 
        which the selection is made pursuant to subsection (a), the 
        senior accountable official for customer experience for each 
        agency, in consultation with relevant agency program officials, 
        shall develop customer experience standards and performance 
        plans, subject to approval by the head of the agency and the 
        Director.
            (2) Requirements for agency customer experience standards 
        and performance plans.--The customer experience standards and 
        performance plans established paragraph (1) shall be--
                    (A) based on customer and market research that 
                identifies the aspects of service delivery that are 
                most important to citizens; and
                    (B) collected through both qualitative and 
                quantitative research methods that incorporate 
                voluntary feedback from citizens.
            (3) Inclusion in agency performance plans.--The approved 
        standards and performance plans shall be included in the agency 
        performance plans required under section 1115(b) of title 31, 
        United States Code.
    (c) Requirement To Submit and Publish Standards and Performance 
Plans.--Not later than 1 month after the approval of the customer 
experience standards and performance plans required pursuant to 
subsection (b), the standards and plans shall be made publicly 
available by the senior accountable official for customer experience of 
the agency on the website of the relevant agency.
    (d) Effective Date of Standards.--The customer experience standards 
and performance plans developed under subsection (b) shall be effective 
upon publication in the agency performance plan pursuant to section 
1115(b) of title 31, United States Code.

SEC. 5. SERVICE IMPROVEMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY UNIT PILOT PROGRAM.

    (a) Establishment of Pilot Program.--Not later than 1 year after 
the date on which the customer experience standards and performance 
plans are published pursuant to section 4(c), the Director shall 
establish a pilot program, to be known as the Service Improvement and 
Accountability Unit Pilot Program (in this section referred to as the 
``pilot program''), to provide assistance to an agency that does not 
meet the standards that apply to that agency under section 4.
    (b) Personnel.--The Director shall work with the head of each 
agency to detail employees within the agency to work on the pilot 
program, based on the expertise and skills required to address service 
improvement goals. Any employee so detailed shall be done in accordance 
with the requirements in section 3341 of title 5, United States Code.
    (c) Responsibilities.--Under the pilot program, the Office of 
Management and Budget shall work with any agency that does not meet the 
customer experience standards developed by that agency under section 4 
to improve and modernize service delivery to develop solutions, 
including the following:
            (1) Evaluating the efforts of the agency to improve service 
        delivery.
            (2) Developing a plan with clearly defined short- and long-
        term goals to improve within existing resources and by drawing 
        on expertise and assistance from other agencies (including the 
        Office of Management and Budget) where necessary.
            (3) Monitoring implementation by the agency of the plan 
        developed under paragraph (2) until the customer service 
        standards are met.
            (4) Submitting every 6 months to the Director of the Office 
        of Management and Budget a report on the progress being made to 
        improve service at the agency until the customer experience 
        standards are met.
    (d) Report.--Not later than 2 years after the date on which the 
pilot program is implemented, and annually thereafter until the 
termination of the pilot program, the Director shall submit to the 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the House of 
Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs of the Senate a report on the accomplishments and outcomes of 
the pilot program across all agencies in which it has been implemented 
and any recommendations for changes necessary achieve the customer 
experience standards developed under section 4. The report shall 
include--
            (1) achievements by agencies in meeting the customer 
        experience performance standards developed under section 4; and
            (2) an evaluation of the difficulties and lack of quality 
        customer experience still prevalent.
    (e) Support.--The Administrator shall provide administrative and 
other support in order to implement the pilot program under this 
section. The head of each agency shall, as appropriate and to the 
extent permitted by law, provide at the request of the Director up to 2 
personnel authorizations who have expertise in change management, 
process improvement, project management, and information technology 
innovation to support the pilot program. Such personnel may be the 
Inspector General.
    (f) Program Continuation.--The pilot program shall be taken up for 
consideration of continuation or termination 5 years after the date of 
the enactment of this Act by the relevant committees of jurisdiction in 
the House of Representatives and the Senate.

SEC. 6. EFFECTIVE DATE.

    This Act shall take effect 3 months after the date of the enactment 
of this Act.
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