USAID Customer Service Plan – 2011

The agency's customer service plan, issued in 2011, aims to ensure that USAID's programs and priorities are responsive to customer needs. USAID seeks to identify its customers and secure their participation to better target its project approaches and focus its efforts and resources on the most productive tasks. The agency's guiding principles for performing its work around the world include managing for results, maintaining a customer focus, building teamwork and participation, encouraging empowerment and accountability, and valuing diversity. USAID defines its customers as individuals, organizations, and entities that receive its services or are the beneficiaries of its assistance. The agency's customers can be categorized into four types: ultimate customers, intermediate customers, internal/process customers, and Washington and U.S.-based customers. USAID's best practices in working with customers include exercising participatory planning techniques, consulting with organizations that represent customer interests, monitoring customer participation, and using customer information to frame program strategies. The agency also communicates with customers on how their recommendations have been incorporated into programs and the results achieved. The USAID customer service plan highlights the agency's efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of aid delivery, as well as its interactions with the U.S. public on whose behalf the agency provides humanitarian and development assistance. The plan focuses on three key initiatives: the Programming Resources Toolbox, the Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC), and increasing public information through web-based and social media engagement. The Programming Resources Toolbox is a signature initiative that aims to make USAID's programming resources available to a wide variety of audiences in a single, easily navigable and accessible website. The Toolbox will put more than 200 of USAID's programming resources at users' fingertips within seconds, addressing the entire programming cycle from needs assessment to program planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. The Toolbox will empower users to locate the right resource quickly without extensive searching, and online capabilities will allow users to sort, search, rank, tag, discuss, and add new resources as USAID enriches its expertise. The DEC is a knowledge repository for USAID programs that provides information about the agency's international development programs. However, the system is not optimized for knowledge sharing and transfer. The DEC 2.0 rollout aims to further the goals of U.S. foreign policy by providing information about USAID's international development programs, so current and future projects can benefit from knowledge about past projects. Increasing public information through web-based and social media engagement is another key initiative of the USAID customer service plan. The agency is in the process of creating formal guidelines for Agency use of Social Media, and a key deliverable in this effort has been the Development Outreach and Communications Survival Manual, a guidance document for USAID staff seeking to engage various audiences through social media. The agency-wide website redesign and strategy for digital engagement are also part of this initiative. The USAID customer service plan aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of aid delivery, as well as the agency's interactions with the U.S. public. The plan focuses on three key initiatives that aim to make USAID's programming resources more accessible, improve knowledge sharing and transfer, and increase public information through web-based and social media engagement.