[Congressional Bills 110th Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] [H.R. 404 Introduced in House (IH)] 110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 404 To require the establishment of customer service standards for Federal agencies. _______________________________________________________________________ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES January 11, 2007 Mr. Cuellar introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform _______________________________________________________________________ A BILL To require the establishment of customer service standards for Federal agencies. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ``Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act''. SEC. 2. DEVELOPMENT OF PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND STANDARDS FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE PROVIDED BY FEDERAL AGENCIES. (a) Requirement.-- (1) Performance measures and standards.--The Comptroller General and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall jointly develop-- (A) performance measures to determine whether Federal agencies are providing high quality customer service; and (B) standards to be met by Federal agencies in order to provide high quality customer service. (2) Requirement to take into account certain information.-- Such standards shall be developed after taking into account the information collected by Federal agencies under subsection (b). (b) Customer Service Input.--The head of each Federal agency shall collect information from its customers regarding the quality of those services. The information shall be collected through a survey, focus groups, or such other appropriate methods as may be approved by the Comptroller General. Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the head of each Federal agency shall submit to the Comptroller General a report on the information collected. SEC. 3. IMPLEMENTATION OF CUSTOMER SERVICE STANDARDS. (a) Customer Relations Representative.--The head of each Federal agency shall designate an employee to be the customer relations representative of the agency. Such representative shall be responsible for implementing the customer service standards developed under section 2 and the agency requirements under subsection (b). (b) Agency Standards.--Subject to subsection (c), the head of each Federal agency, acting through its customer relations representative, shall prescribe regulations to implement the customer service standards developed under section 2 within the agency. The regulations shall include specific principles of customer service applicable to that agency and shall be available on the agency's public website. (c) Approval by Director.--The regulations developed under subsection (b) may be prescribed only after approval by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. SEC. 4. INSPECTIONS AND REPORTS BY GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE. (a) Inspections.--The Comptroller General shall inspect each Federal agency each year and analyze each such agency's customer service performance to determine whether it is meeting the standards for customer service developed under section 2. (b) Reports to Agencies.--After inspecting a Federal agency pursuant to subsection (a), the Comptroller General shall annually provide to the agency a report on its customer service performance. (c) Report to Congress.--The Comptroller General shall annually submit to the Committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate a report on the performance of customer service by Federal agencies. SEC. 5. AWARDS FOR EXEMPLARY CUSTOMER SERVICE. The Comptroller General may give an award to a Federal agency to recognize the provision of exemplary customer service by the agency, as determined by the Comptroller General based on an inspection under section 4 or such other evaluation determined appropriate by the Comptroller General. SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS. In this Act: (1) The term ``customer'', with respect to a Federal agency, means any individual or non-Federal Government entity to which the agency provides services. (2) The term ``Federal agency'' has the meaning given the term ``Executive agency'' by section 105 of title 5, United States Code, except that the term does not include an agency if the President determines that this Act should not apply to the agency for national security reasons. <all>