Success Stories
Enhanced communication strategy helps CDC prevent illness, raise awareness
Situation
Although CDC.gov is one of the most comprehensive federal government websites, it was only useful to those citizens who came looking for the information. The CDC became aware of a missing link between this hub of information and the citizens who needed it: the agency needed a communication solution that would proactively provide citizens with relevant information without increasing the workload of CDC employees.
Solutions
The CDC implemented GovDelivery's Digital Communication Management solution in November 2006 to improve service to citizens and further its mission to promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability. By the end of 2008, CDC had reached just over 230,000 subscribers and sent 27-million email alerts.
Results
Federal agencies look to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) for insight into how citizens perceive the agency in terms of customer service, information accessibility, and website usability, relative to others in the government sector and in private sector industries. “We’ve always had fairly decent numbers there [on the ACSI],” says Janice Nall, Director of e-Health Marketing of the CDC which received a score of 81 in the most recent release on January 25, 2011 (aggregated score for all of the Federal Government had plummeted to 65.4). Nall continues, “What we found [was that] our numbers were our highest ever. And the only thing significant that we had changed...the only thing we really can attribute to that increase in user satisfaction are the email updates, and the fact that we have been trying to do a better job refreshing the content.”
