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	Customer Satisfaction Initiative Department of Education Publications Center

How ED Pubs Supports the Department's Strategic Plan

All indicators are the Department has made a significant improvement in the area of product dissemination. The success of ED Pubs has a direct impact on the Department's Goal 4, Objective 4.1:

• Our customers receive fast, seamless service and dissemination of high-quality information and products.

• Indicator 4.1.a. The Department continues to increase public access to information, as measured by Web site visits and number of customer inquiries at major front-line call centers. The Customer Base has increased more than 140% since the beginning of the project.

• Indicator 4.1.b. The Department will continue to increase customer satisfaction with Department products, services, and information. For example, orders will continue to be shipped within 1-3 business days, customers are automatically notified via e-mail when their orders are placed, shipped, and received, and the Bulk Publication Ordering System (BPOS) allows schools, colleges, and other organizations to order student financial aid materials online. ED Pubs processes over 450 expedited orders monthly to agency-wide usage for seminars and conferences. These orders are shipped same or next day.

• Indicator 4.1.c. The Department's front-line call centers will provide prompt service to customers. ED Pubs' customers rated its service and products above the national average for both the public and private sectors. ED Pubs serves as a model site for federal government, having been featured in the 1999 Excellence in Government conference, and received Vice President Gore's Hammer Award for putting customers first for ordering all of the Department's publications.

The contractor for Ed Pubs was recently awarded the Excellence in Logistics Award by the Transportation & Distribution magazine for outstanding logistics practices resulting in significant improvements in customer service, supplier relationships and cost reduction. ED Pubs was also awarded the Deputy Secretary of Education's Quality Reinvention Award for the many improvements to customer service and publication dissemination.

Benefits of ED Pubs

ED Pubs is a project that through its integration of publication distribution is strategically designed to save money and avoid costs. Using the most cost effective mailing of products and eliminating excess supplies of out dated inventory are cost saving measures. Print budgets have been reduced by more timely reprinting of popular publications to avoid rush jobs; referring callers to URLs for electronic copies rather than placing orders to ship printed versions. Responsiveness to customers has received high ratings on a national survey, rating ED Pubs service as comparable to Nordstrom's.

For every package shipped from ED Pubs, a cost comparison is performed between various shipping methods to determine the most economical method of shipping that will still guarantee the package arrives by the requested delivery date. Increased use of barcoding will further improve the quality of all orders shipped to customers by ensuring the correct product is shipped and the correct number of copies is sent.

Department Performance

The Department has made significant performance improvement in following areas: a)dissemination, b) customer satisfaction; c) information management; d) inventory control; e) cost savings by sending our products in the most cost-effective manner; and f) allowing ED staff to perform duties other than the labor-intensive tasks of mailing products.

ED Pubs' customers have expressed appreciation in receiving our products in a timely manner by sending numerous letters and e-mails on this new service. In addition to ED Pubs' operators receiving customer profiles, the ED Pubs Fulfillment System automatically sends out a Customer Satisfaction Survey with every tenth order. The contractors' Survey Operations Center processed and analyzed the data using SAS Version 8 software. As results of the latest survey, May 2000, overall, the vast majority of ED Pubs' respondents (96.4%) reported that the product they ordered exceeded their expectations.

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This page last modified June 12, 2003 (kms)