Ramona Adams
A new survey commissioned by Accenture and Salesforce says 49 percent of U.S. adults prefer to access government services through websites.
Accenture said Tuesday 31 percent of respondents cited agency-specific telephone service as the most desired type of access; 25 percent prefer mobile devices without the use of applications; and 21 percent favor a single 311 telephone service for all requests.
The Governing Institute gathered data for the report through an online survey of 2,006 U.S. citizens and 125 local government officials in May.
According to the survey, 74 percent of respondents claimed they rarely or never request services from government agencies and only 10 percent said they send requests regularly.
Thirty-seven percent of surveyed citizens said their government service requests were not addressed promptly.
The report also found that 61 percent of respondents did not know whether their jurisdiction had a telephone or online platform for non-emergency government service requests.
Among surveyed individuals who live in a jurisdiction with a 311 or civic engagement platform, 58 percent were unaware of the service.
Forty-one percent of respondents said their most desired feature in a civic engagement service is feedback on whether their request was received and confirmation when the issue is addressed.
The survey revealed that 63 percent of government respondents believe citizens’ expectations for government services are being well met, but only 36 percent of citizens affirmed such level of satisfaction.
