SBA Form 2313 Supporting Statement B 1-25-13

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods.

1. The target population for this survey is the disaster loan applicants and borrowers who contact the Disaster Assistance CSC directly for service, and for the FOC portion of the survey, those disaster victims that seek out SBA assistance at a local recovery center. While actual call volume fluctuates based on the number and severity of disasters in any given year, the DACSC has averaged just over 150,000 calls annually between 2010 and 2011. Historically, the DACSC may provide service to upwards of 5,000 callers on a weekly basis to which this survey would apply. In order to achieve a 90% level of confidence with a 10% margin of error, approximately 100 customers would need to be surveyed monthly at this benchmark level of activity. The survey will continue to be administered via the phone with a successful contact rate of approximately 30%. The success rate is typical of what has been achieved over the past three years and reflects a downward revision from the estimated 50% success rate notated on our original submission. Therefore approximately 300 call attempts will be required to produce 100 successful surveys. This survey is intended to be on-going in nature, therefore a similar statistically significant sample will be contacted every month to assess the effectiveness of the service by the DACSC. For surveys conducted on behalf of the Field Operations Centers (FOCs), an additional 100 customers would be surveyed monthly. Surveys have never been conducted for the FOCs, however assuming a similar 30% success rate, 333 calls would need to be attempted to generate 100 successful surveys for the FOC portion of the survey.

2. Three members of the Quality Assurance staff will be responsible for conducting the survey using a scripted format to ensure uniformity in explaining the purpose of the survey, as well as the questioning, recording of results, and survey closure. The list of survey subjects will be taken from a random sample of callers to the DACSC within the previous 72 hours. There are no plans to stratify the population of callers to the DACSC for purposes of this survey. The results of this survey are intended to be used internally to measure the effectiveness of service at the DACSC and identify any potential areas for improvement. A 90% confidence level with a 10% margin of error is deemed acceptable for this purpose. While this survey is designed to measure customer satisfaction on an on-going basis, safeguards will be implemented to ensure the same customer is not surveyed more than once during a twelve-month period.

3. Survey participants will be contacted at their residence (or the contact number provided by the applicant) during reasonable hours being mindful of time zone differences. Care will be taken not to contact individuals at their place of employment for this survey. Business customers will be contacted at the number provided for their business during customary business hours (8:00 am – 5:00 pm). To ensure completion of the requisite 100 surveys per month, a random sample of customer contacts from the preceding 72 hours will be extracted from the DACSC phone database. To ensure completion of the surveys conducted on behalf of the Field Operations Centers (FOCs), a list of customers who visited field locations will be provided to the survey administrators by the FOCs.

4. The staff conducting the survey are trained in the proper procedure for administering the questions and are required to rehearse the survey with training personnel prior to conducting the actual surveys. This training will ensure a standardized survey process and improve the reliability of the data obtained by the three Government employees conducting the survey.

5. Perry Pedini, Customer Service Supervisor, and his staff will be responsible for collecting and summarizing the survey data on behalf of Center Director, William E. Leggiero, Jr.

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