Communications and Information Services Program

Consultation objectives

In December 2010, Communications and Information Services Program sought feedback from external users on its services, including overall satisfaction with the services and client success in completing specific tasks. The consultation was part of an overall evaluation of seven key services provided by the program.

Consultation methodology

Potential respondents were selected from lists of recent users of the services. Of 1,065 users invited to participate, 349 (32.8%) responded to the survey.

How to get involved

This consultation is now closed.

Individuals who wish to obtain more information or to take part in a consultation should contact Statistics Canada through the Statistical Information Service.

Please note that Statistics Canada selects participants for each consultation to ensure feedback from a representative sample of the target population for the study. Not all applicants are asked to participate in a given consultation.

Results

Respondents were very satisfied with telephone services, services provided by staff, CANSIM and HelpLine Support. E-STAT and the Copyright Administration Service were rated as satisfactory as well.

Respondents were satisfied with the electronic enquiries service and Publications Distributors’ Relations. In the comments section, respondents raised a number of questions concerning the National Contact Centre (NCC);  however, most of these questions are outside NCC control, such as the availability, timeliness and cost of data, the format of some outputs and the content of the free portion of the website.

Electronic enquiries services received lower ratings than telephone services.  The lower ratings may reflect the fact that while electronic requests are typically more detailed and complex than telephone ones, respondents expect the same fast and complete service from both services. For electronic services, timeliness and overall satisfaction were deemed satisfactory with an average satisfaction rate at slightly below 80% and an overall success rate of 67%.

Recommendations

Key recommendations were:

• Maintain NCC staff training to ensure a consistently high level of client service
• Clarify and simplify processes and rules regarding copyright, licensing and pricing
• Enhance E-STAT to be more user friendly, including the search engine and lesson plans
• Improve the search engine for the overall website

Statistics Canada thanks participants for their participation in this consultation. Their insights guide the Agency’s web development and ensure that the final products meet users’ expectations.