ITA - Commercial Services Program Clients Qualitative Interviews

OMB CONTROL NO. 0690-0030

Expiration Date: 4/30/2014

International Trade Administration

Qualitative Client Interviews

Pre-recruitment and Interview Guide for:

Investigation of Client Satisfaction Trends

Pre-recruitment script: Hello. My name is [researcher name] and I am calling from the U.S. Commercial Service’s Process Improvement Team. We want to provide companies like yours with the best possible export assistance services, and we actively seek client feedback to improve the export assistance services that we provide to U.S. firms like yours. Your suggestions are very valuable to us. May I set a 45 minute appointment to discuss your recent experience with the [service name] service in [location]. I would like to talk about expectations you had regarding this service, whether we met those expectation and what we can do to improve this service.

Is [date, time] convenient for you? Great. A program manager from our Process Improvement Team will call you on [agreed upon date and time] at [phone number]. We can send you an e-mail reminder, is [read e-mail address] the best address to use? Thank you very much. We look forward to speaking with you on [date].

Interview Guide

Hello. I am [name] from the U.S. Commercial Service’s Process Improvement Team. I’d like to talk to you about your recent experience with the [service name] service in [location].

1. Can you give me some background information about your decision to do [service name] in [location].

Probe:

• How or why did you decide to use this service?

• What was your main objective for selecting this service? / What business need(s) did you expect to meet as a result of this service?

• What did you expect to do / accomplish as a result of this service?

2. I understand that you participated in this service because you wanted to [paraphrase answer from previous question]. Did this service help you to achieve this goal?

Probe:

• What aspects of your goal(s) did you achieve?

• What aspects of the [service name] helped you to achieve each of these goals? Please describe how these helped.

• What aspects of your goal(s) did you not achieve?

• What specifically could we have done to help you to achieve these goals?

3. Think about the ideal [service name] for a company like yours. What would this service be like? What would it include? What would it do for you?

4. How close did we come to meeting your ideal for [service name]?

• In what ways did we achieve the ideal?

• In what ways did we fall short?

5. Let’s talk about the overall experience you had working with the Commercial Service regarding this [service name]. What was it like to work with the Commercial Service?

• If not previously mentioned, probe for: quality of counseling, staff’s knowledge of exporting and local market, responsiveness, level of follow-up, other attributes.

• Did any aspect of the experience surpass your expectations? How so?

• Did any aspect of the experience fall short of your expectations? How could we have made the experience better?

Thank you very much for sharing your comments. Your opinions are important in helping us to improve our service.

Public reporting for this collection of information is estimated to be 45 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. All responses to this collection of information are voluntary, and will be provided confidentiality to the extent allowed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person is required to respond to, nor shall any person be subject to a penalty for failure to comply with, a collection of information subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act unless that collection of information displays a current valid OMB control number. Send comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to the Reports Clearance Officer, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce, Room 4001, 14th and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20230.