OSDBU Request 2024-11-13 OMB Updated

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for Improving Customer Experience: OMB Circular A-11, Section 280 Implementation”

(OMB Control Number: 2900-0876)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Enterprise Contact Center Council (ECCC) Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Survey

PURPOSE OF COLLECTION:

What are you hoping to learn / improve? How do you plan to use what you learn? Are there artifacts (user personas, journey maps, digital roadmaps, summary of customer insights to inform service improvements, performance dashboards) the data from this collection will feed?

• To help improve the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) contact center customer experience, VA established the Enterprise Contact Center Council (ECCC) in 2018. This effort arose after customers reported a confusing, inconsistent response when navigating over 1,000 VA toll-free numbers and multiple VA contact centers. The ECCC improves touchpoints with military service members, Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors by modernizing VA contact centers—a dynamic multi-year journey that considers new information along the way while continually learning, growing, evolving, and improving customer experience.

• The Veteran Experience Office has been commissioned to measure the satisfaction of Veterans that call or are called by the Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) Call Center to include their interaction with call center staff. Veterans Experience Office (VEO) will be conducting a brief transactional survey on persons who recently interacted with the Call Center. The survey is completed via an automated telephone design. It will focus on such elements as trust, satisfaction, quality, and employee helpfulness.

TYPE OF ACTIVITY: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Research (Interview, Focus Groups, Surveys)

[ X ] Customer Feedback Survey

[ ] Usability Testing of Products or Services

ACTIVITY DETAILS

1. If this is a survey, will the results of this survey be reported to Touchpoints as part of quarterly reporting obligations specified in OMB Circular A-11 Section 280?

[ ] Yes

[X] No

[ ] Not a survey

2. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

3. Who will you collect the information from?

Explain who will be interviewed and why the group is appropriate for the Federal program / service to connect with. Please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and if only a sample will be solicited for feedback, how you will select them(e.g., anyone who provided an email address to a call center rep, a representative sample of Veterans who received outpatient services in May 2019, do you have a list of customers to reach out to (e.g., a CRM database that has the contact information, intercept interviews at a particular field office?)

• The Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) call center’s goal is to provide Veterans with policies and programs that successfully leverage the federal procurement system to enable Veterans to gain access to procurement ready Veteran-Owned Small Businesses and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses in federal contracting such as economic opportunities. Veterans that call in will interact with an OSDBU customer service representative. The survey will be offered to all Veterans that call into the OSDBU call center..

4. How will you ask a respondent to provide this information?

(e.g., after an application is submitted online, the final screen will present the opportunity to provide feedback by presenting a link to a feedback form / an actual feedback form)

• After speaking to a customer service representative, an automated message will offer the survey to the Veteran. The Veteran can choose to accept taking survey, decline to take the survey, or hang up. If a veteran hangs up on the survey, it will be treated as a decline and the Veteran will not be called back about this survey.

• The survey will be offered to Veterans that call the OSDBU call center. It will be completed via an automatic telephone design.

5. What will the activity look like?

Describe the information collection activity – e.g. what happens when a person agrees to participate? Will facilitators or interviewers be used? What’s the format of the interview/focus group? If a survey, describe the overall survey layout/length/other details? If User Testing, what actions will you observe / how will you have respondents interact with a product you need feedback on?

• The survey will consist of seven questions, offered via an automatic telephone design. It will be offered at the conclusion of their call with the OSDBU Call Center. The questions include such elements as trust; satisfaction; quality; and employee helpfulness.

6. Please provide your question list.

• Help us serve you better.

• Your opinion matters. We care about your time with VA. Please take this survey to let us know about your experience. The more information you share with us, the better we can serve you.

• This voluntary survey should take you approximately 5 minutes to complete.

• The information provided by the phone representative was explained in terms I could understand.

• Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

• The length of time it took to get connected to a phone representative was reasonable.

• Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

• The phone representative answered my question on the issue I recently called about.

• Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

• The phone representative treated me with courtesy and respect.

• Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

• The information provided during the call helped me feel that I have a better understanding of my issue and next steps.

• Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

• I am satisfied with the service I received from the VA Call Center.

• Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

• I trust VA to fulfill our country’s commitment to Veterans.

• Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

• Thank you for choosing VA.

• The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs uses these surveys to collect your feedback in order to continuously improve your experience with VA Services.

• VA Burden Statement: An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB control number for this project is 2900-0876, and it expires 02/28/2026. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 5 minutes per respondent, per year, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering, and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate and any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to VA Reports Clearance Officer at [email protected]. Please refer to OMB Control No. 2900-0876 in any correspondence. Do not send your completed VA Form to this email address.

• Privacy Notice: By filling out this survey, you are authorizing VA database access to retrieve Veteran contact information to follow up with you accordingly for purposes of service recovery, potential crisis, or to learn more about feedback you have shared regarding your experience with VA. Your contact information and response may be referred to the Veterans Crisis Line if an automated review indicates your response may be concerning. The Veterans Crisis Line may contact you for follow up as a result of that referral. VA may utilize individual Veteran survey data from this survey or other sources to ensure the final scores truly and accurately represent the experiences of Veterans. This collection of information is authorized by Executive Order 14058 on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government.

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

• Done.

7. When will the activity happen?

Describe the time frame or number of events that will occur (e.g., We will conduct focus groups on May 13,14,15, We plan to conduct customer intercept interviews over the course of the Summer at the field offices identified in response to #2 based on scheduling logistics concluding by Sept. 10^th, or “This survey will remain on our website in alignment with the timing of the overall clearance.”)

• The survey will be a continuous, ongoing survey to collect customer service data offered to all callers to the OSDBU Call Center.

• We have a 10% response rate to these types of surveys. The OSDBU call center receives about 50,000 calls annually. Therefore, we are expecting to receive 5,000 completed surveys per year.

8. Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants?

[ ] Yes [X] No

If Yes, describe:

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden Hours
	5,000	5 minutes	417
Totals	5,000	5 minutes	417

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collections are voluntary;

2. The collections are low-burden for respondents (based on considerations of total burden hours or burden-hours per respondent) and are low-cost for both the respondents and the Federal Government;

3. The collections are non-controversial;

4. Any collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the near future;

5. Personally identifiable information (PII) is collected only to the extent necessary and is not retained;

6. Information gathered is intended to be used for general service improvement and program management purposes

7. The agency will follow the procedures specified in OMB Circular A-11 Section 280 for the required quarterly reporting to OMB of trust data and experience driver data from surveys.

8. Outside of the quarterly reporting mentioned in the bullet immediately above, if the agency intends to release journey maps, user personas, reports, or other data-related summaries stemming from this collection, the agency must include appropriate caveats around those summaries, noting that conclusions should not be generalized beyond the sample, considering the sample size and response rates. The agency must submit the data summary itself (e.g., the report) and the caveat language mentioned above to OMB before it releases them outside the agency. OMB will engage in a passback process with the agency.

Name and email address of person who developed this survey/focus group/interview:

Name: Sergio Gazaryan

Email address: [email protected]

All instruments used to collect information must include:

OMB Control No. 2900-0876

Expiration Date: 02/28/2026

HELP SHEET

(OMB Control Number: 2900-0876)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Provide the name of the collection that is the subject of the request. (e.g. Comment card for soliciting feedback on xxxx)

PURPOSE: Provide a brief description of the purpose of this collection and how it will be used. If this is part of a larger study or effort, please include this in your explanation.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: Check one box. If you are requesting approval of other instruments under the generic, you must complete a form for each instrument.

CERTIFICATION: Please read the certification carefully. If you incorrectly certify, the collection will be returned as improperly submitted or it will be disapproved.

Personally Identifiable Information: Agencies should only collect PII to the extent necessary, and they should only retain PII for the period of time that is necessary to achieve a specific objective.

BURDEN HOURS:

Category of Respondents: Identify who you expect the respondents to be in terms of the following categories: (1) Individuals or Households;(2) Private Sector; (3) State, local, or tribal governments; or (4) Federal Government. Only one type of respondent can be selected per row.

No. of Respondents: Provide an estimate of the Number of respondents.

Participation Time: Provide an estimate of the amount of time required for a respondent to participate (e.g. fill out a survey or participate in a focus group)

Burden: Provide the Annual burden hours: Multiply the Number of responses and the participation time and divide by 60.

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