Kiwis Count — Customer insights

Kiwis Count measures service satisfaction and trust in government services at the macro level.

Agencies are also encouraged to measure satisfaction with their services at a detailed level to help them understand how they are doing in improving areas that matter most to New Zealanders, and where to focus resources for the greatest impact. In 2007, SSC undertook research to identify the key factors or drivers that have the greatest influence on New Zealanders’ satisfaction with, and trust in, public services. These results were published in the Drivers Survey[1] (2007). Since 2012 Kiwis Count has asked respondents to answer questions about aspects of their satisfaction (the driver questions) based on the channel used for the most recent service interaction. These responses show:

• New Zealanders access public services most often via the face-to-face channel (37%). This has reduced since 2012 (52%).
• Sending or receiving an email is the second most common channel (16%). This has increased from 6% in 2012.
• The phone is the third most used channel (13% in 2019, down from 15% in 2012).
• Accessing information online is the fourth most used way to access public services (12%) and use of this channel has increased from 2012 (4%).
• Transacting online follows as the next most used way to access public services (11%), up from 6% in from 2012.
• Sending or receiving a letter is used by only 10%, down from 17% in 2012.
• Only 1% of respondents in 2019 used social media to get information or to give feedback (e.g. Facebook or twitter).

One way of improving satisfaction with public services is for agencies to focus on these key drivers (Drivers Survey, 2007):

• The service experience met your expectations.
• Staff were competent.
• Staff kept their promises, they did what they said they would do.
• You were treated fairly.
• You feel your individual circumstances were taken into account.
• It’s an example of good value for tax dollars spent.

Kiwis Count has measured the drivers of satisfaction since 2007. Not all drivers are equal: ‘the service experience met your expectations” is the most important driver and accounts for nearly one third of satisfaction with public services. 79% of respondents reported that their most recent service experience met their expectations. This was the same level as in 2016 and 2017, but down slightly from last year. Results for this driver are shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9 “Met expectations” driver

The results for “met expectations” on transacting using the online channel is high in 2019 but has dropped back slightly since 2018. This is illustrated in Figure 10. Notable among the results in the figure are the following:

• 88% of respondents had their expectations met when transacting online with the public service (a decrease from 90% in 2018, but up from 84% in 2017).
• 82% of respondents had their expectations met when looking for information online, down from a high of 87% in 2016 but an improvement on the 2018 rating of 73%.

The face-to-face channel – visited an office, branch or location or received a visit (and dealt with a person) has not shown much of change since 2016, but 2019 is still a healthy result at 83%. There is a slight increase in respondents having their expectations met on the phone channel, being 69% in 2019 up from 68% in 2018 and 59% in 2012. Satisfaction on the phone channel has always been lowest for the “met expectations” driver.

Figure 10; Met expectations by channel used

When considering all channels, the drivers present a strongly positive picture, with all increasing since 2012. Two drivers “You were satisfied with the amount of time it took to do what you wanted to” (76%) and “You got what you needed” (81%) saw results in 2019 that were similar to those in 2018. “Overall you can trust them to do what is right” (79%) decreased by 1% in 2019. The driver “The service is an example of good value for tax dollars spent” stayed at 74% in 2019, down from a high of 77% in 2016.

The digital experience for New Zealanders saw fluctuations in satisfaction across all four areas examined. The area of “the layout was clear” saw a decrease of five percent, from 82 to 77%. It was this figure in 2017. Overall satisfaction with accessibility as measured by the “Overall, you were satisfied with the accessibility of the site or digital service” question decreased to 82% in 2019, down from 86% in 2016.

Ease of use as measured by “The process was straightforward and easy to understand” decreased to 81% in 2019. This is higher than most of the years so far. Ease of finding the service or product, measured by “When you got to the site it was easy to find what you were looking for” decreased to 74%, a similar figure to 2017. This result is down from the high of 83% in 2016.

Kiwis Count measures New Zealanders’ satisfaction with a basket of 43 commonly used public services^[2]. The usage of the services examined (as a percentage of all respondents) is given in Table 4.

Table 4: Service usage

[1] See the Kiwis count methodology and Technical Report 

[2] The full report on the 2007 Drivers Survey can be found at https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/drivers-report and the summary report can be found at https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/understanding-drivers-report