VE Non-Substantial Change White Paper

Veterans Experience Office

Non-Substantial Change Request

Request to Add Customer Experience Questions to Existing Customer Experience Surveys

OMB Control Numbers 2900-0782, 2900-0770, 2900-0609, 2900-0701, 2900-0712, 2900-0773, 2900-0838, 2900-0834, 2900-0836, 2900-0837, and 2900-0835.

Justification

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Experience Office (VE) seeks a Non-Substantial Change to existing VA Customer Experience Survey instruments – OMB Control Numbers 2900-0782, 2900-0770, 2900-0609, 2900-0701, 2900-0712, 2900-0773, 2900-0838, 2900-0834, 2900-0836, 2900-0837, and 2900-0835. This change will support the life of VA, because VA is responsible for a timeless mission: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan”— by serving and honoring the men and women who are America’s Veterans. To fulfill its mission, VA has identified four agency priority goals (APG) in FY16-17. One APG is to Improve Veterans Experience with VA by providing Veterans with effective and easy experiences in which they feel valued.

In accordance with Memorandum for the President’s Management Council dated January 2006, it is noted in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget guidance, that a high response rate increases the likelihood that the survey results reflect the views and characteristics of the target population. VA has developed four new survey questions to track it. The VE APG specifies that these four survey questions must be incorporated into existing customer experience surveys by Q1 FY2016. Therefore, VE seeks incorporate the APG questions into existing VA customer experience surveys. The goal is that by September 30, 2017, VA will reach 90% agreement with the statement “I trust VA to fulfill our country’s commitment to Veterans.” VA estimates that these four multiple-choice questions will take the average respondent approximately a minute to complete.

VA expects that it will take approximately one minute for each survey respondent to answer these new questions. This change is expected to affect approximately 132 instruments approved under eleven different OMB control numbers. Together, these instruments are submitted nearly 1.5 million times per year. The cumulative annual burden of this change is more than 24,000 hours ((1 minute per submission * 1, 462,937 submissions) / 60 minutes per hour = 24,382.28 hours). VA has provided a table detailing the full burden information for each information collection located at http://www.oprm.va.gov/ers/ers_reports.aspx.

Updates across Existing VA Customer Experience Surveys

The following four questions will be added to the end of the surveys collected under OMB Control Numbers 2900-0782, 2900-0770, 2900-0609, 2900-0701, 2900-0712, 2900-0773, 2900-0838, 2900-0834, 2900-0836, 2900-0837, and 2900-0835:

Now think about your experiences with all the services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (which include healthcare, benefits programs, or memorial services).

Please tell us how you feel about the following statements

“I got the service I needed.”

“It was easy to get the service I needed.”

“I felt like a valued customer.”

“I trust VA to fulfill our country’s commitment to veterans.”

Strongly agree

Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Disagree

Strongly disagree

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