Supporting Statement
Information Collection Request (ICR) to Conduct Customer Satisfaction Surveys (OMB #1545-1432)
Title: Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Contractor Satisfaction Survey
JUSTIFICATION
Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary
Satisfaction surveys have proven to produce significant information about the key dimensions of the customers’ experience in dealing with IRS Procurement as well as pointers to where improvement opportunities might lie.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 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 (RRA) of 1998. This is also a result of Executive Order 12862 that requires all government agencies to survey their customers.
Purpose and Use of the Information Collection
The Contractor Satisfaction Survey is part of a program that measures contractor satisfaction with IRS Procurement. Results are used to identify improvement opportunities and make changes, if necessary, in the way IRS Procurement conducts business with its contractors.
Consideration Given to Information Technology
The survey is administered electronically, using the Verint (formerly Vovici) software, on a yearly basis after the completion of a fiscal year.
Duplication of Information
This survey will provide valuable information that is not available in any internal IRS data source.
Reducing the Burden on Small Entities
The survey is only administered once a year and only to contractors that conducted business with IRS Procurement in the fiscal year being surveyed.
Consequences of Not Conducting Collection
Maintaining good relations with our contractors is key to IRS Procurement’s success. The data retrieved from this survey measures how well IRS Procurement is communicating and working with our contractors and identifies areas where we can improve. The improvements made help ensure the retention of good contractors on future acquisitions. We also give the contractor the option to be contacted if they need any assistance with an ongoing issue with IRS Procurement. If we did not administer this survey, we would not have a way of determining our contractors’ satisfaction with conducting business with our procurement office, and therefore, we would not have a way of understanding how we could improve our relationship with them.
Special Circumstances
There are no special circumstances. The information collected will be voluntary. These statistics could be used in making management decisions such as in business improvement opportunities.
Consultations with Persons Outside the Agency
No consultations will be conducted with persons outside the agency.
Payment or Gift
No payment or gift will be given or received as a result of this survey.
Confidentiality:
No PII will be collected during the survey. The data provided to IRS will have no identifying information relating specific records to individual taxpayers. Nonetheless, IRS will ensure that privacy to the extent allowed by law and security of the aggregated results will receive the utmost attention. Public and official access to the information will be tightly controlled. The computer files containing this tabulated information will remain password protected at all times. Data security approaching level C-2 will be accomplished using the Windows XP operating system. Electronic files used to capture the survey data will be destroyed when the project is completed and there is no further need for the data. We will apply fair information and record-keeping practices to ensure protection of all taxpayers. 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 taxpayer information as well as its release to authorized recipients.
One voluntary survey question asks participants if they would like to be contacted to discuss the survey further. If they respond “Yes,” they are requested to provide their name and telephone number or e-mail address (whichever they prefer). They are told that if they provide their name and contact information, the information they provided in the survey will be shared with the service provider.
The survey will not contain tax return or taxpayer information. Survey participants will not be identified in any of the reports unless they asked to be contacted. We will carefully safeguard the security of the data by storing the information in a restricted folder that only 4 people have access to.
Sensitive Nature
No questions will be asked that are of a personal or sensitive nature.
Burden of Information Collection
The number of recipients is dependent on the number of contracts IRS Procurement has active in a fiscal year. The time that a respondent takes to complete the survey is carefully considered, as only 5 questions are asked. The average time of survey completion is expected to be 5 minutes.
Based on a population of potential respondents of 2,300 and a response rate of 15%, we expect 345 survey participants, leaving 1,955 non-participants.
To determine the contact time for all possible participants, a calculation of up to one minute to read the email invitation results in a burden time of 2,300 x 1 minute = 2,300/60 minutes = 38.33 burden hours.
For participants, total participation time is 5 minutes. This reflects the time needed to complete the survey. The time burden for participants is 345 x 5 = 1,725/60 minutes = 28.75 burden hours.
The total burden hours for the survey is (38.33 + 28.75) = 67.08 burden hours
Type of Collection |
Participation |
Response Time (minutes) |
Total Burden (Hours) |
Potential participants |
2,300 |
1 |
38.33 |
Expected participants |
345 |
5 |
28.75 |
Grand Total Burden |
|
|
67.08 |
Costs to Respondents
There will be no costs to the respondents for participating in this survey.
Costs to Federal Government
The cost to the Federal Government for this information collection is $500.
(IRS currently has 8 licenses under an IRS AWSS software contract with the Verint (formerly Vovici) organization. The overall cost of the software contract is approximately $24,000 per year at $3,000 per license/6 different surveys to be conducted by Procurement in FY2018).
Reason for Change
No change requested. This is a new request.
Tabulation of Results, Schedule, Analysis Plans
The survey data is collected via an electronic questionnaire through the Verint survey software. The survey questions remain the same year after year so that we may obtain comparative data over the years. The survey includes several ratings questions, evaluating overall service as compared to other federal agencies, timeliness of the procurement actions, communication and professionalism of the procurement staff, and ease of the procurement process. In addition, ample space is provided for suggestions for improvement.
Survey scoring is based on a 5 point scale with 1 being Very Dissatisfied and 5 being Very Satisfied. The comments are organized and reported in 5 categories: Communication, Customer Burden, Professionalism, Timeliness and Not Actionable. These comments are also categorized as negative or positive to identify IRS Procurements’ strengths and weaknesses. All survey responses will be released only as summaries. No responses or comments are attributed to any one survey recipient unless they ask to be contacted.
Display of OMB Approval Date
IRS is seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval, as this is a one-time, limited-duration collection.
Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions
There are no exceptions. These activities comply with the requirements in 5 CFR 1320.9.
19. Dates Collection of Information will Begin and End
October 30, 2017 – December 8, 2017
B. STATISTICAL METHODS
Universe and Respondent Selection
The contractor names and email addresses are pulled from the IRS Integrated Procurement System (IPS) who conducted business with the IRS in the fiscal year being surveyed.
Procedures for Collecting Information
The survey is administered electronically, using the Verint (formerly Vovici) software, on a yearly basis after the completion of a fiscal year. The procedure for collecting information consists of:
Issuing an initial email invitation to participate in the survey
After two weeks, a survey reminder is sent to non-responders
Survey closes within a week or two after the reminder is issued and reporting information is provided to managers for review
Methods to Maximize Response
The questionnaire length is minimized to 5 questions to reduce respondent burden; thereby, tending to increase response rates. Respondents are assured anonymity of their responses unless they ask to be contacted.
Testing of Procedures
The questionnaire is an established and tested survey instrument. If changes are made to the questionnaire, only minor changes are expected as we prefer to keep the survey consistent year after year for comparative data.
Contacts for Statistical Aspects and Data Collection
Cindi Wallace
IRS Procurement, Office of Procurement Support Services, Business Operations Specialist
703-336-4078
Survey instruments include the following and are attached in one document as a separate file.
Email Invitations and Survey Questions
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | DOCUMENTATION FOR THE GENERIC CLEARANCE |
| Author | 558022 |
| Last Modified By | SYSTEM |
| File Modified | 2017-08-29 |
| File Created | 2017-08-29 |