OMB0128_supporting statement (2008)

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

CPSC REQUEST FOR EXTENSION OF APPROVAL OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEYS

A. Justification

1. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is an independent federal regulatory agency that was created in 1972 by Congress in the Consumer Product Safety Act. In that law, Congress directed the Commission to “protect the public against unreasonable risks of injuries and deaths associated with consumer products.”

One way CPSC works to reduce the risks of injuries and deaths from consumer products is by informing and educating consumers and by responding to consumer inquiries. The Hotline, National Injury Information Clearinghouse, Web site, and State Partners Program disseminate information to the American public and respond to consumer requests for information. The Ombudsman and Fast Track programs provide information to businesses seeking information or wishing to report and propose product recall plans.

This request for clearance of customer satisfaction surveys is in response to the Government Performance and Results Act’s (GPRA) requirement for evaluations of service quality and customer satisfaction. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) staff is committed to systematic efforts for obtaining customer feedback and has included Strategic Goals and annual performance goals for customer satisfaction with many of our programs. Thus, in 1998 we initially developed five specific surveys so that we could evaluate our ability to meet our customer service performance goals. Since that original clearance, one additional survey was added for our Web Site services. This submission is to extend approval of an existing clearance for these surveys. The specific surveys included in this clearance relate to the following agency programs:

Fast Track Recall Program- Firms use this program to report and simultaneously propose satisfactory product recall plans,

Ombudsman Program- Small businesses use this program to seek information or assistance from CPSC’s small business ombudsman,

State Partner Program- State representatives work with CPSC staff on cooperative programs,

CPSC Hotline Services- Consumers telephone the CPSC toll-free hotline to report product related incidents or receive information on recent product recalls,

Information Clearing House Services- Consumers, industry members, or others contact the National Injury Information Clearinghouse for information, and

Web Site- CPSC maintains an internet web site, at www.cpsc.gov, for the use of consumer and industry to obtain important safety information about recalls, programs, and regulations.

These surveys are scheduled to be conducted in three year cycles; therefore, we are requesting extension of a prior approval to conduct these six specific surveys for evaluation of service quality and customer satisfaction.

2. The information will be used by the CPSC Office of Financial Management, Planning and Evaluation to prepare sections of the agency’s Annual Performance and Accountability Report, required by the GPRA. This information will provide measures of the quality and effectiveness of agency efforts related to its strategic and annual performance goals in the areas of providing services to industry and consumers. In the past, information from these surveys has shown an overall high level of customer satisfaction. If this information is not periodically collected, we would not have useful measures of our effectiveness in reaching consumers and others, and the information necessary to guide program development and improvement would not be available. We would be unable to measure our ability to meet our identified GPRA goals.

3. Four surveys, Clearinghouse, Fast Track, Ombudsman, and State Partners, use email as one of two data collection techniques. Participants who have provided an e-mail address to the agency receive e-mails containing a link to an online survey. The Web Site survey also uses an online survey, providing a link to visitors of the CPSC website. We anticipate that these techniques will reduce the burden on respondents and/or improve data quality in these cases.

4. There are no other sources of information related to the quality of our services. The CPSC Office of Financial Management, Planning and Evaluation, through internal review of all requests, will ensure that none of the surveys under this clearance ask for duplicated information.

5. Occasionally the information will be collected from small businesses or other small entities. However, the overall burden for these surveys will be minimal (expected to average about 4 minutes).

6. If the collection is not conducted or conducted less frequently, staff will be unable to evaluate the agency’s customer services and report in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 Annual Performance and Accountability Reports, required by the GPRA. Without this information, it would be difficult for staff to identify areas needing improvement and take the necessary actions to increase customer satisfaction with our services.

7. There are not likely to be any special circumstances that would cause information collection to be under any of the conditions described in item number 7 of the specific instructions.

8. Each of the original surveys has been conducted more than once since 1999 and the results have been included in the agency’s Annual Performance and Accountability reports submitted to Congress. No complaints about the agency’s efforts to obtain this information were received either from respondents or other sources.

There was one comment received in response to the first FR notice published May 29, 2008. Copy of comment is included in electronic submission.

9. The Commission does not provide any payment or gift to respondents of the survey.

10. No confidential or personally sensitive information will be solicited. Nonetheless, the information collected will be compiled into statistics and releases will not be such that individual respondents would be identified without their prior stated consent or approval. Each survey informs the participants of the confidential or anonymous nature of their responses.

11. There will be no questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual behavior or attitudes, religious beliefs, or other matters commonly considered private.

12. We have developed the following estimates based on our past experience conducting these surveys. Each survey would be conducted once during a three year period.

a. For the Fast Track survey, 150 program participants will be asked to partake in an electronic or general mail survey taking about 4 minutes to complete.

b. For the Ombudsman survey, 200 program participants will be asked to partake in an electronic or general mail survey taking about 4 minutes to complete.

c. For the State Partner survey, 54 state representatives will be asked to partake in an e-mail survey taking about 4 minutes to complete.

d. For the Hotline survey, 350 hotline callers who give their address will be asked to partake in a general mail survey taking about 4 minutes to complete.

e. For the Clearinghouse survey , 300 program participants will be asked to partake in an electronic or general mail survey taking about 4 minutes to complete.

f. For the Web Site survey, 1,000 Web Site visitors will be asked to partake in an electronic survey taking about 4 minutes to complete.

13. We estimate that the total annualized cost/burden to respondents would be about 46 hours (an average of about 4 minutes times an average of 685 respondents per year). The annualized cost to respondents for the hour burden for collection of information is $1,289 based on a total of 46 hours at $28.03/hour (Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly private industry employer compensation costs, December 2007).

14. We estimate that the annualized cost to the Federal Government to be about 57 staff hours (about 5 minutes processing time per response). Based on the average hourly Commission salary of $24.95 per hour, the 57 hours of CPSC staff time would be valued at about $1,422.

15. The program changes are the result of having direct experience with the surveys and being able to refine our sample size estimates more accurately. As the CPSC website has become more popular, a larger population has been available for participation; meanwhile the Hotline caller’s population shrinks as individuals easily retrieve information from the website. Specific changes in each survey since the last approval include:

Clearinghouse Survey- We are including email as a second survey method. Participants will be sent four mailings over several weeks instead of two mailings as in previous survey. We have increased our sample size from 260 to 300. We have increased the staff time estimates due to the increased follow-up activity.

Fast Track Recall Program- the sample size has been reduced from 180 to 150. We are increasing the attempts to contact the respondent from three attempts to four.

Hotline Survey- The sample size has been reduced from 1,000 to 350. This survey has been changed from a telephone survey to a mail survey and will include four contacts with respondents instead of one. The target population has been changed from all callers in a fiscal year to callers in a seven week period. Several of the questions on the survey have been adjusted to provide for a range of answers (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree). We eliminated the questions about “Did you speak directly to a Hotline staff person?” and “Did your call to the Hotline tell you what you wanted to know? because those areas will be addressed by the remaining questions. In our previous survey we offered to send CPSC publications as a “thank you” for completing the survey. This has been eliminated in the planned survey because…

Small Business Ombudsman Survey- The survey will now include a telephone follow up to non-respondents. We have included mail and telephone follow up survey methods to the previous web-based email survey.

State Partners Survey- The previously used telephone survey has been changed to an web-based survey with fax follow up. The questions have been updated to reflect more current state partner activities.

Web Site Survey-the sample size has been increased from 500 to 1,000 and the sampling time frame has been increased from a 3 week period to a ten week period.

16. Results of this information collection activity will be included in the agency’s 2008, 2009 and 2010 Annual Performance and Accountability Reports as required by the GPRA.

17. Not applicable.

18. Not applicable.

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods

1. See attached information sheets.

2. See attached information sheets.

3. To increase response rate all surveys are conducted using the Dillman four step method. The method suggests participants be contacted four times by: a prenotice letter, letter with survey, reminder letter, and thank you letter. Each letter is personalized by the CPSC chairman with their signature, insures confidentiality or anonymity throughout the survey, arrives personally addressed to the participant, contains information on the purpose of the survey, and provides contact information. Surveys are brief, respondent-friendly and arrive with a postage-paid return envelope for general mail surveys.

4. Not applicable

5. N.J. Scheers, Ph.D.

Director Division of Planning, Budget and Evaluation

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

301-504-7670

Mail and Internet Surveys, by Don A. Dillman

How to Conduct Your Own Survey, by Priscilla Salant and Don A. Dillman

“Using E-mail to Survey Internet Users in the United States: Methodology and Assessment,” Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, by K. B. Sheehan and M. G. Hoy.

“Comparative Response to a Survey Executed by Post, E-mail and Web Form,” Journal of Computer Mediated Communication by G.W. Yun and C.W. Trumbo.