Communities of Interest

Government Customer Service Community of Interest

In January 2008, USA Services initiated a Government Customer Service Community of Interest. This community of interest is an interagency group of customer service professionals.

We hope to build a close knit community of peers from across the government who will work together to address issues important to them for improving the quality of service provided by agencies to their customers. The first issues addressed are recommendations from the July 2007 Government-Wide Assessment of Citizen Service Activities, but after this the direction of the group will be decided by the group.

Our goals:

The three primary goals for this group will eventually be set by the group, but for starters, we expect this group will:

1. Improve the ability for customer service professionals to do their jobs by gaining knowledge of best practices and solutions to problems they face
2. Improve overall government customer service
3. Create a dynamic community of government customer service professionals in DC and throughout the country

What the Community of Interest will do:

To accomplish these goals members will:

1. Share information about their best practices, their research, operations and plans for dealing with trends and challenges
2. Identify and develop recommended solutions for critical customer service-related issues
3. Network with other communities of interest to help increase professionalism of customer service in government

How the Community of Interest will be organized:

The community of interest consists of 2 subgroups, or "study groups." These study groups are largely self-directed with a group facilitator provided by USA Services. Each group will focus on developing recommendations to a specific problem. The life span of each group will be between 8 and 12 months. The exact duration and format of the final report will be decided by the group. When the report is complete, members will have the option of starting a new working group to focus on a new issue or of joining/continuing with another pre-existing working group. Topics of future workgroups will be decided by the community of interest itself.

Sponsor: USA Services, Office of Citizen Services and Communications, GSA

How to Get Involved: Contact the Robert Smudde for information.