Memo to Rachel

Date: April 23, 2007

To: Rachel Potter

OMB Desk Officer

From: Richard Dawkins

Federal Student Aid (FSA)

Borrower Services

Borrower Services, in Federal Student Aid (FSA), requests clearance for the 2007 Annual Direct Loan School Customer Satisfaction Survey. As part of the Common Services for Borrowers (CSB) performance-based contract, the contractor, Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS), developed incentives tied to a web-based Annual Direct Loan School Customer Satisfaction Survey. The survey is a quantitative study that evaluates service to schools that interact with the Direct Loan Servicing Center, School Services Group, via the phone, web or Internet. The results of the survey are used to measure the effectiveness of the various customer service options, and to make enhancements and improvements when appropriate.

The first school survey was conducted in 2006 and included baseline questions. The number of completed surveys in 2006 totaled 445, or 45 percent of the 981 viable emails sent to the schools. More than 93 percent of the schools were satisfied, very satisfied, or extremely satisfied with the service they received.

The 2007 survey duplicates the 2006 survey and adds six program specific questions as follow:

Graduate-PLUS (G-PLUS)

1. Please describe your experience with the G-PLUS program during the last year.

[text response]

2. Please provide any recommendations you have to enhance the G-PLUS program.

[text response]

Late Stage Delinquency Accounts (LSDA)

1. Please describe the activities your institution performs to manage and minimize Late Stage Delinquent accounts.

[text response]

2. Please provide any recommendations you have for enhancing the LSDA process for next year.

[text response]

Entrance/Exit Counseling

1. What issues or questions have you or your students had regarding Entrance and/or Exit Counseling activities this past year?

[text response]

2. Please provide any recommendations you have for improving the Entrance/Exit Counseling process.

[text response]

The Independent Quality Control Unit (IQCU) in ACS will distribute the survey and collect and report the results to FSA using pre-established and documented criteria. The IQCU will also provide the documented procedures followed and the detailed survey responses.

Following is the required information for this survey:

1. Title of Survey:

2007 Annual Direct Loan School Customer Satisfaction Survey

2. Control Number: 1845-0045 v. 35

3. Public affected by the survey:

Direct Loan Schools

4. Number asked to respond to survey:

Two hundred Direct Loan School representatives will participate in a confidential web-based survey. The survey will be delivered to the Direct Loan School representatives via an email inviting their participation.

5. Hours per response to survey:

Each of the 200 school representatives will participate in a web-based survey that will take 6 – 9 minutes to complete.

6. Total burden hours on public:

200 x 7.5 minutes (average) / = 25 hours

7. Survey’s statistical methodology and design:

The survey is designed to receive feedback from Direct Loan School partners based on their experiences related to the Direct Loan Servicing Center, School Services Group. The results of this survey will be used to measure the effectiveness of customer service by phone (CSR), Internet (email) and online tools (website), and make enhancements when appropriate. Further, as part of the CSB performance-based contract, favorable survey results can create a monetary contract incentive. Likewise, a negative overall survey score will result in a contract disincentive.

8. Response rate:

200 respondents = 100%. Once the initial survey goes out to the representatives, email reminders will be sent on a weekly basis until 200 respondents are received. It is estimated to take one to four weeks to receive the 200 respondents.

9. Federal costs (In order to ensure that the cost of the survey is minimal to the Federal Government):

   1. Production: This survey work is a component of FSA’s fixed price CSB contract and will not cost the government any additional costs to produce.

   2. Printing: na

   3. Mailing: na

   4. Staff time: The planning, production, and development of the survey, in addition to the tabulation of data from the survey, are under the CSB contract, and therefore will impose no additional costs to FSA.

   5. Approximate staff hours: See 9d

10. Request approval date:

Two weeks from date of submission: