Citizens are more satisfied with how government services work online, even if they aren’t all that thrilled with who is running the government, according to a new survey from Accenture. In the survey of more than 3,000 U.S. citizens in mid-2016, 85 percent of respondents said they expect the same or higher quality from government digital services as they do from commercial organizations, up from 73 percent in a similar survey in 2014. Over that same time period, however, the number of citizens who said they are satisfied with digital services from government more than doubled, from 27 percent in 2014 to 58 percent in the 2016 survey.
“Government has made major headway in satisfying citizen expectations for digital services, and demands and opportunities to do better keep growing,” said Peter Hutchinson, Accenture strategy lead for state and local government consulting. “With around 40 percent of citizens remaining unsatisfied with digital government, and clear evidence that digital services are generally well-received when implemented, the public sector must continue expanding the scope and increasing the quality of its digital capabilities.”
When it comes to what those improvements might be, the survey shows that people are increasingly expecting government services to be fully accessible through their mobile phones. More than four in 10 respondents (44 percent) in the most-recent survey said they placed priority on smartphone access to government digital services, versus 28 percent in 2014.
Citizens also want to have government services integrated with social media. Four in 10 respondents (40 percent) in the most-recent survey said they placed priority on integration of government digital services with social media, double the 20 percent who said so in the 2014 survey.
