CS-15-462 GLDS Customer Satisfaction Survey

OMB #1545-1432

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

Paperwork Reduction Act Information Approval Request

To Conduct Customer Satisfaction Research

GLDS 2015 Customer Satisfaction Survey

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary

The Governmental Liaison, Disclosure and Safeguards office of the Privacy, Governmental Liaison and Disclosure Division of the IRS, in partnership with SB/SE Finance, Research & Strategy, is conducting a survey to collect feedback on service delivery in order to ensure that GLDS programs are effective and meet the customers’ needs.

This collection of information is necessary to enable SB/SE Research to garner customer satisfaction feedback, on behalf of GLDS, in an efficient, timely manner, in accordance with our commitment to improving service delivery. The information collected from liaisons and users will help ensure that GLDS customers have an effective, efficient, and satisfying experience with their products and services.

The survey instruments will be used to determine the customer satisfaction. A similar effort to collect information for GLDS was performed in 2010 and 2012. Minimal changes have been made to the two original survey instruments for the primary liaisons and service and product users. For this project, an additional survey was developed for distribution to data services customers.

The Internal Revenue Service enlists a balanced measurement system consisting of business results, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction. This initiative is part of the service-wide effort to maintain a system of balanced organizational performance measures mandated by the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. This is also a result of Executive Order 12862 (Setting Customer Service Standards, issued on September 11, 1993) that requires all government agencies to survey their customers. Pursuant to Executive Order 12862, agencies that provide significant services to the public must survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services. Executive Order 13571 (Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service, issued on April 27, 2011) expands the definition of "customer" and encourages the use of a broader set of tools to solicit actionable, timely customer feedback to capture insights and identify early warning signals. As used in Executive Order 13571, the term "customer" refers to any individual or to any entity, including a business, tribal, state or local government, or other agency, to which the agency directly provides significant services.

2. Purpose and Use of the Information Collection

The primary goals of the survey are to measure customer satisfaction from the liaisons, product users and data service customers. The evaluations will be used to enhance further GLDS products and develop new strategies if needed. The surveys will be used to identify key issues with products and services.

3. Consideration Given to Information Technology

The evaluation surveys will be distributed as an attachment via e-mail using e-mail lists provided by GLDS. The attachment will be a Portable Document Format document. Adobe Acrobat Reader is free software widely used by all federal agencies and most state and local agencies. Prior to distributing the evaluations, each primary liaison will be notified via e-mail that the evaluation is forthcoming, emphasizing that the evaluation has two parts. The cover letter for Part I of the evaluation explains that Part I should be completed by the primary liaison. Part II of the evaluation will also be sent to the primary liaison with instructions to send the survey to all users of the GLDS products. Part III of the evaluation will be sent directly to the data services customers.

The survey respondents will complete the survey in the PDF attachment to the email. The completed survey will be sent to an IRS email address created specifically for the GLDS survey. Completed surveys will be placed into a designated, secure folder on a FR&S server.

4. Efforts Not to Duplicate Research

SB/SE Finance, Research and Strategy administered similar customer satisfaction evaluations for GLDS in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012. This year’s survey is very similar to the one issued in 2012. There is one new survey being administered this year – to customers of data services. This type of survey evaluation is unique to GLDS. No other GLDS evaluation has been or will be issued to GLDS customers. This evaluation may be used in subsequent years with OMB approval.

5. Reducing the Burden on Small Entities

No small business or other small entities will be involved in these efforts. Only state level and city level treasury departments in the target population will receive a survey. SB/SE FR&S Research will minimize the burden on them under this clearance by asking for readily available information and by using short, easy to complete information collection instruments.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting Collection

Without feedback from their customers, SB/SE FR&S will not have information on user’s satisfaction with GLDS liaison and disclosure program, bulk data exchange program or data services program. The survey is used to identify key issues that GLDS needs to address in order to improve. Feedback from customers is important in order to assess perceptions of the GLDS system and develop service improvement actions. If the survey is not conducted, the GLDS organization goal to measure external customer satisfaction and identify barriers to using the system cannot be achieved. Without feedback from external customers, service to improve customer satisfaction and reduce burden may not be achieved.

7. Special Circumstances

There are no special circumstances. The information collected will be voluntary and will not be used for statistical purposes

8. Consultations with Persons Outside

N/A

9. Payment of Gift

SB/SE FR&S Research will not provide payment or any other forms of remuneration to respondents.

10. Confidentiality

All participants will be subject to the provisions of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights II during this study and SB/SE FR&S and GLDS will ensure that all participants are treated fairly and appropriately.

The security of the data used in this project and the privacy to the extent allowed by law of respondents will be carefully safeguarded at all times. Security requirements are based on the Computer Security Act of 1987 and Office of Management and Budget Circular A-130, Appendices A & B. Physical security measures include a locked, secure office and secure server. Notes are stored in locked cabinets or shredded. Data security at the C-2 level is accomplished via the Windows NT operating system. Systems are password protected, users profiled for authorized use, and individual audit trails generated and reviewed periodically.

The IRS will apply and meet fair information and record-keeping practices to ensure privacy protection, to the extent allowed by law, of all taxpayers. This includes criteria for disclosure—laid out in the Privacy Act of 1974, the Freedom of Information Act, and Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code—all of which provide for the protection of taxpayer information as well as its release to authorized recipients.

The survey will not contain tax return or taxpayer information. Survey participants will not be identified in any of the documents or files used for this project. We will limit and control the amount of information we collect to those items that are necessary to accomplish the research questions. We will carefully safeguard the security of data utilized. IRS will hold the identities of respondents private to the extent permitted by law. We will apply the fair information and record-keeping practices to ensure protection of all survey respondents. The criterion for disclosure laid out in the Privacy Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code provides for the protection of information as well as its releases to authorized recipients.

11. Sensitive Nature

No questions will be asked that are of personal or sensitive nature.

12. Burden of Information Collection

The GLDS surveys were designed to minimize burden. The time a respondent takes to complete the survey has been carefully considered and only the most important areas are being surveyed. We made every attempt in designing this survey to minimize burden and maximize response rate. Burden estimates are based on a 65 percent response rate.

Surveys will be emailed to GLDS liaisons and customers.

Estimated Response Rate: 65 percent

The average time of survey completion is expected to be 15 minutes.

Based on a sample of potential respondents of 490 and a response rate of 65 percent, we expect 320 survey participants, leaving 170 non-participants. The contact time to determine participants could take up to five minutes to read the email invitation and subsequent reminder, with the resulting burden being 490 x 5 minutes/60 = 40.8 burden hours.

For participants, total time to read email invitations and reminders and complete the survey is 15 minutes. The time burden for participants is 320 x 15/60 minutes = 80 burden hours.

The total burden hours for the survey is (40.8 + 80) = 120.8 burden hours

Type of Collection	Participation	Response Time (minutes)	Total Burden (Hours)
Potential Respondents Contact	490	5	40.8
Expected Participants	320	15	80
Grand Total Burden			120.8

13. Costs to Respondents

N/A

14. Costs to Federal Government

N/A

15. Reason for Change

N/A

16. Tabulation of Results, Schedule, and Analysis Plans

Surveys will be emailed to GLDS primary liaisons at the state and local level; end users of GLDS products and services; and participants in the Disclosure of Information to Federal State and Local Agencies (reimbursable) program.

With regard to the low response rate, the IRS will assume that all data collected from this survey is qualitative in nature, and no critical decisions will be made by this office solely from the analysis of data from this survey.  The results from this survey are simply one piece of a larger set of information needed to assess the needs related to services provided by the IRS.

IRS will hold the identities of respondents private to the extent permitted by law. Because the anticipated response rate is less than 80 percent, Research will conduct the required non response analysis if the final response rate is below 80 percent.

17. Display of OMB Approval Date

N/A

18. Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions

These activities will comply with the requirement in 5 CFR 1320.9.

19. Dates collection will begin and end

September 1, 2015 through October 9, 2015.

B. STATISTICAL METHODS

The primary purpose of these collections will be for internal management purposes; there are no plans to publish or otherwise release this information. We will use a three part evaluation for this project. The three customer satisfaction surveys are attached.

Part I of the evaluation asks for satisfaction data on the liaison’s working relationship with the GLDS primary contact, as well as satisfaction with program implementation, safeguards and security, and secure data transfer.

Part II of the evaluation asks for satisfaction data from the users of GLDS products and services on the GLDEP as well as the Secure Data Transfer program. In addition, Part II asks for satisfaction levels on the timeliness, format, adequacy (meets their needs), accuracy, and clarity of the IRS GLDS products and services.

Part III of the survey is new and these questions were not on previous surveys. This survey asks for the satisfaction level of participants in the DIFSLA (reimbursable) program. Unlike the users of GLDS products and services, this group is identifiable. Another difference is the products used by this group; it is not tax information per se but income information used for benefits eligibility. Due to the differences with this group of GLDS customers, it was felt that a separate survey was needed to provide feedback specific to this program.

1. Universe and Respondent Selection

   1. The market segment consists of employees of the 141 federal, state and local agencies who receive products and services from the IRS GLDS. These are agencies that have enrolled or partnered with IRS GLDS in an effort to improve their tax or benefit administration. The agencies cover all 50 states, territories, and Washington DC. Although most are state-level, a few agencies are from cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, and St. Louis.

   2. Federal agencies include Departments of Labor, Treasury, Transportation, and Justice.

   3. The survey participants will consist of primary liaisons at the state and local level; end users of GLDS products and services; and participants in the Disclosure of Information to Federal State and Local Agencies (reimbursable) program. The participants surveyed will represent a sample of the overall population.

2. Procedures for Collecting Information

IRS SB/SE Finance, Research & Strategy will administer the survey by e-mail the week of September 1^st 2015. Standard procedures will be used in order to obtain the highest response rate possible for the e-mail survey. These will include: 1) a pre-notification e-mail about the survey, 2) cover letter and survey, and 3) an e-mail reminder.

3. Methods to Maximize Response

   1. IRS will attempt to achieve an overall 65 percent response rate in the surveys. We have enhanced protocols to maximize the response rate. One week prior to distributing the evaluations, each primary liaison will be notified via e-mail that the evaluation is forthcoming, emphasizing that the evaluation has two parts. Two weeks after the initial distribution of the evaluation, a reminder email requesting completion will be sent to all participants. A final reminder email will be sent five days before the survey closes.

   2. We made every attempt in designing this survey to minimize burden and maximize response rate. Burden estimates are based on a 65 percent response rate.

4. Testing of Procedures

   1. Pretesting will be conducted. Prior to distributing the evaluation surveys, Mountain Research and PGLD will conduct a pilot test using five participants. A minimal amount of resources will be used for the surveys’ testing since the form and design of the survey is the same as the 2012 survey. The purpose of the testing is to verify the e-mail system participants will use to return their completed evaluations is working correctly.

5. Contacts for Statistical Aspects and Data Collection

For questions regarding the study, questionnaire design or statistical methodology, contact:

Melissa Dedrick

Program Analyst

SB/SE Finance, Research & Strategy

Mountain site

303-603-4887

[email protected]

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