PROVIDING PREMIER CUSTOMER SERVICE
PBGC's Customer Service Pledge
Our customers deserve our best effort as well as our respect and courtesy.
On the first call from you, our customer, we will say:
We will call you if anything changes from what we first said, give you a status report and explain what will happen next.
We will have staff available from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Eastern time to answer your calls. If you leave a message, we will return the call within one workday.
We will acknowledge your letter within one week of receipt.
Customer Service Initiatives and Results
"e-Gov": this cryptic shorthand describes and yet understates the thrust of PBGC's customer service activities during 2001. Under the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA), all federal agencies must provide their customers with electronic alternatives to paper forms, and use and accept electronic signatures, by October 2003. Electronic government, or e-Gov, offers vast possibilities for improving the quality and scope of PBGC's service to all of its customers. The Corporation embraced the concept and initiated extensive efforts during 2001 to meet – and exceed – the requirements spelled out in GPEA. PBGC's goal is to allow its customers to complete and submit transactions electronically through its Web site, replacing the labor-intensive paperwork of the past.
The first step in this effort was a complete redesign of the Corporation's Web site (www.pbgc.gov) to enable the site to handle electronic processes. The redesign was more than cosmetic; PBGC had to prepare the site's underlying structure to support electronic business transactions.
Following extensive preparations that included more than 30 requirements sessions with PBGC staff and the use of state-of-the-art Web technology, the Corporation unveiled its next-generation Web site on October 1, 2001. The new Web site lays the groundwork for PBGC to create a true e-Government site with interactive electronic versions of the Corporation's business transactions. In addition to making information easier to find, the redesign added a number of features to improve customer service. The Web site now includes more user-friendly language, a glossary explaining PBGC pension terminology, a list of plans trusteed by PBGC, a retirement planning section and a contact page listing all commonly used PBGC e-mail addresses.
While the submission of forms electronically is not possible yet, PBGC is committed to improving customer service by allowing its customers to interact with the Corporation electronically whenever feasible. Moreover, PBGC's Web site does include copies of the Corporation's most important forms used by participants in PBGC-trusteed plans and administrators of PBGC-insured plans. The forms may be downloaded to the user's personal computer, from which they may then be printed, completed and returned to PBGC. In addition, by the end of the year PBGC had developed a standardized process for converting the paper forms to electronic "business transactions" and had begun work on solutions to the issues of electronic authentication, signatures, security and privacy.
PBGC continued to explore and implement other measures to improve customer service through information technology. The Corporation upgraded its previous Web site in 2000 to make its information accessible to users with disabilities, as required by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. During 2001, PBGC completed testing of its older information systems to identify any potential accessibility issues remaining to be fixed. PBGC also educated its staff on recent changes to the legal requirements for accessibility and modified its procedures to make sure that new material posted on its Web site and new applications purchased for agency use are fully compliant with the law.
In addition, the Corporation began consideration of a Customer Relations Management (CRM) system that would track and coordinate all incoming inquiries, whether by telephone, fax, correspondence, e-mail or walk-in, and provide access to information throughout PBGC needed to support responses to those inquiries. In 2001 PBGC initiated an agency-wide examination of customer relations management and the appropriate approach to achieve it.
According to PBGC's surveys and focus groups, participants who have not yet retired when PBGC takes over their pension plan want one service more than virtually any other -- early benefit estimates. To address this need, during 2001 PBGC initiated a pilot program of special Web sites for certain trusteed plans. PBGC used the special sites to provide targeted services, including plan-specific information and updates and one unique feature -- an online benefit calculator that allowed participants in these plans to estimate their benefits. With this calculator the participants could also vary certain data such as age at retirement and expected retirement date to see the effect on their estimated benefits. Those who wished to do so could make online requests to obtain more detailed written benefit estimates from PBGC within 15 days of their request. At the end of the year, PBGC was continuing to develop the calculator feature while it consolidated the plan-specific Web sites with the newly redesigned PBGC Web site.
The plan-specific Web pages are one sign of PBGC's progress in satisfying participant requests for better quality and more timely information. An even more significant step took place during the Corporation's meetings with large groups of participants from newly trusteed plans. For the past few years, PBGC has regularly met with such groups to help ease their concerns and explain the pension insurance program. PBGC held 68 such information sessions across the country in 2001, which more than 11,500 plan participants attended. Senior PBGC executives, including then-Acting Executive Director John Seal and Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Joseph Grant, attended the sessions to meet participants and answer their questions.
This was by far the largest number of participant meetings held in one year. For the largest of these meetings, with participants from the Trans World Airlines (TWA) plans, PBGC not only held the meetings shortly after taking over the plans, but also distributed written benefit estimates to all participants in the plans. PBGC had never attempted this before. In the case of TWA, the third largest group of related plans ever trusteed by PBGC, more than 30,000 written estimates had to be completed and printed out in time for the more than 30 meetings being held across the country. Because the electronic records collected by the agency were in good shape, PBGC staff were able to complete preliminary valuations of both TWA plans, reviews of plan documents, benefit calculations for all TWA plan participants and meeting preparations within a matter of weeks. The effort was so successful the Corporation repeated it in October for the 8,000 participants in the Bradlees Stores plan. In all, PBGC prepared and distributed some 40,000 benefit estimates soon after taking over responsibility for the plans, a first in the Corporation's history.
The past year saw several records set for productivity. PBGC produced more final benefit determinations and completed more plan valuations than in any previous year in the Corporation's history. (Chart showing number of benefit determinations issued increasing from about 24,000 in 1992 to 76,554 in 2001.) Now that computerized participant records are becoming the norm, PBGC produced its final benefit determinations sooner after plan trusteeship than ever before, and the average age of unissued benefit determinations also fell to a new low of 1.5 years.
PBGC's results for 2001 are the hallmark of a deep-seated commitment to premier customer service. With faster issuance of benefit determinations, more people are finding out their benefits earlier. As a result, more people are better able to plan for their retirement and fewer people are overpaid through estimated benefits, requiring fewer and lower repayments. PBGC is providing better quality, more timely information and, at the same time, is using the Internet more extensively than ever before to provide current plan-specific information. These are among the top priorities for PBGC's customers, and PBGC is working diligently to deliver what its customers demand and expect.
The Corporation spares no effort in communicating with and listening to its customers -- participants in PBGC-trusteed plans and sponsors of PBGC-insured plans and the pension professionals who assist them. Every year PBGC conducts surveys and focus groups with both participants and practitioners. Through these focus groups and surveys, PBGC asks its customers about the quality of its service and how that service can be improved. PBGC's efforts to produce earlier benefit estimates, faster benefit determinations and improved communications all stemmed from comments PBGC received from its customers in the past.
Other comments led to changes in PBGC's policies, procedures and regulations as a means of improving customer service. Early in 2001 PBGC announced several changes in its premium regulations that simplify procedures and ease burdens for plan administrators. One of these changes allows plan administrators to pay a prorated premium for a short plan year rather than pay a full year's premium and request a refund or claim a credit against a future premium payment. Another change narrowed the definition of "participant" for PBGC premium purposes by allowing administrators to exclude from their participant counts people who have not earned benefits and for whom the plan has no other benefit liabilities. With this latter change, a new plan will not have to pay a premium for its first year unless it provides credit for service before the plan began. And, the Corporation issued a new, simplified premium payment form, the Form 1-EZ, to replace the longer, more complicated Form 1 and Schedule A for single-employer plans that are exempt from paying PBGC's variable-rate premium.
Until 2001 PBGC had relied on its own surveys to gather comments and customer evaluations of its service. These surveys were developed in consultation with experts in the field but were conducted by agency employees. Beginning in 2001, the Corporation began participating in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) to measure the satisfaction of participants in PBGC-trusteed plans with the service PBGC provides. The ACSI index is a sophisticated, internationally accepted index compiled annually from surveys by a partnership that includes the University of Michigan Business School, the American Society for Quality and the CFI Group. The index, used by 170 major companies and 39 federal agencies, offers an objective third-party measure, independent of PBGC, which can help identify and prioritize areas for customer satisfaction improvement. The index will also be useful to compare PBGC to other government and private-sector organizations that provide services similar to PBGC. The Corporation will begin using ACSI to determine practitioner satisfaction with its service in 2002.
During 2001 PBGC's ACSI score for participants in plans that the Corporation has taken over was 73, compared with a government-wide score of 71. PBGC's goal is to achieve an ACSI score of 76 by 2005. In addition, according to surveys conducted by PBGC during the year, 71 percent of practitioners rated PBGC's service as "above average" or "outstanding," meeting the Corporation's 2001 goal.
Problem Resolution
PBGC's Problem Resolution Officers are available to help with particularly difficult issues and customer service concerns.
Participants in PBGC-trusteed plans may reach PBGC's Participant Problem Resolution Officer by calling 1-800-400-PBGC or by e-mail at participant.pro@pbgc.gov.
Plan sponsors, plan administrators and pension professionals may reach PBGC's Practitioner Problem Resolution Officer by calling 1-800-736-2444 (202-326-4242 if in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area) or by e-mail at practitioner.pro@pbgc.gov.
TTY/TDD users may call the Federal Relay Service toll-free at 1-800-877-8339 and ask the communications assistant to connect them to the appropriate telephone number.
Workforce Planning and Succession Management
The federal workforce is growing older. As it does, the need for agencies to plan for future changes in personnel grows more pressing, and PBGC is no exception. In a September 2000 report on PBGC's contracts management, the U.S. General Accounting Office recommended, among other actions, that PBGC conduct a comprehensive review of its future workforce needs and better link staffing and contracting decisions to its strategic planning process. Separately, in 2001 the Office of Management and Budget issued a bulletin requiring that each federal agency develop a five-year plan to change its organization to become more responsive to citizens.
To address GAO's recommendation and OMB's requirement, early in 2001 PBGC engaged the National Academy for Public Administration to assess its workforce planning and make recommendations for improvement. (NAPA is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization chartered by the Congress to improve government operations.) Following a review of PBGC's staffing patterns, use of contractors, future workforce projections and related issues, NAPA's report laid out a systematic six-step model for linking workforce planning with strategic planning and the assessment of needed skills. NAPA's model became the foundation of PBGC's workforce planning efforts. Analysis required under the first steps began in 2001 and will continue through 2002, development of solutions and strategies is targeted for 2002-2003 and implementation of solutions and strategies will occur in 2003 and beyond.
Through its own in-house resource, the Martin Slate Training Institute, PBGC conducts an extensive program devoted to the training and development of its staff. The Institute, established in November 1994 and subsequently named in memory of a former Executive Director, is actively engaged in a multifaceted training program to ensure that the Corporation has a core of experienced, prepared managers and staff to meet future workforce changes.
PBGC's commitment to employee development dates back several years. Throughout its history PBGC has participated in "Upward Mobility," a traditional program aimed at equipping lower-graded personnel with professional skills. This program furthers the careers of employees selected to participate, enhances their ability to contribute to PBGC's success and prepares them for future assumption of greater responsibility.
In 1996 PBGC initiated its first employee mentoring program, through which experienced managers or staff members share their knowledge and insights with less seasoned co-workers. The Corporation generally conducts one or two such programs each year; depending on the program, mentorees may be new managers, senior professional staff or non-supervisory employees. Since 1996, PBGC has had eight mentoring programs, in which 182 employees have participated, some more than once. PBGC has found that both mentors and mentorees gain from the program. Many of the mentoree graduates have gone on to more extensive developmental programs or have received more significant responsibilities within the Corporation. Mentors have become more analytical of their own decisions and have begun to look at alternatives in decision-making and problem-solving. PBGC has also begun an ongoing program for alumni of the mentoring program, which allows them to originate and participate in special projects of benefit to the Corporation, as well as pursue their own professional growth.
PBGC's latest effort, begun in 2001, is a pilot succession management program called "Leaders Growing Leaders." This competitive, two-year developmental program was designed by a workgroup of seasoned managers to develop a diverse pool of candidates who are highly qualified to compete for PBGC's leadership vacancies over the next 5 to 10 years. Of the seven employees selected for the pilot program, six have already served as mentors for other PBGC staff members. Each of the seven candidates was assigned a senior-level advisor, completed a multilevel assessment of their leadership abilities and prepared an individual development plan, and each is participating in developmental assignments, special leadership training opportunities and "action learning projects" involving real organizational problems.
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