The latest results of the E-Government Satisfaction Index rose to 74 on the ACSI's 100-point scale, up from the previous high of 73.9, set two quarters ago, Larry Freed, president of ForeSee Results and author of the report, said in a statement.
"This aggregate score for the 92 sites measured this quarter is the highest quarterly score on record since the index was created in September 2002," Freed said. "This is a turnaround from last quarter when citizen satisfaction had stalled."
The E-Government score still trails those of private sector e-business (75.9) and e-commerce (79.6), but that gap is gradually narrowing, according to the report. The 92 sites studied in the second quarter of 2006 are divided into four categories depending on the primary function of the site: Portals/Department Main Sites; News/Information; Ecommerce/Transactions; and Recruitment/Careers. Aggregate scores rose in all four categories.
Twenty sites scored 80 or higher, a threshold generally recognized by the ACSI as demonstrating excellent commitment to customer satisfaction, according to the report. Online satisfaction with federal Web sites usually improves incrementally, Freed said.
Forty-nine percent of the sites measured this quarter showed improvement in satisfaction -- up from 31 percent in the first quarter -- though no site posted a quarterly increase of more than three points. Meanwhile, 24 percent showed no change and 27 percent declined, he said.
"Many top-performing government Web sites are using customer satisfaction measurement as a management metric, and it shows," Freed said. "When federal Web sites commit to collect and act on the 'voice of the customer,' they can focus their resources on areas that will have the most impact on satisfaction and future behavior. It's smart business and smart government."
There was even good news for government sites that didn't do such a great job keeping their customers happy, Freed said. The score for the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau's Web site rose five points to 63 from a year ago and was up three points in the last quarter, Freed said.
And the National Library of Medicine's health information repositories, MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus en Espanol, continue to exceed expectations of their users, according to the report. Both sites have remained in the top performers' group for each of the 11 quarters in which they have been measured, according to the report.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has had high satisfaction scores of 80 or above since it was first measured in third quarter of 2004. Like the National Library of Medicine, the NCI recently began measuring customer satisfaction of the Spanish-language area of its cancer.gov site and received a score of 82, the report said.
Despite the generally high marks, Freed said agencies should continually work to improve their sites."The online evolution continues, and government sites, like their private-sector counterparts, must continue to stay one step ahead of citizens' evolving standards, which are shaped by the sum total of the Web sites they visit," he said.