Are you a customer of the NRC? We frequently interact with licensees, industry groups, other federal agencies, states and the general public. Some of these groups (licensees for example) do not fit the traditional definition of a “customer.”
Nonetheless, consistent with the basic intent of Executive Order (EO) 13571, “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” dated April 27, 2011, and subsequent guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the NRC has developed a Customer Service Plan.
The plan, posted at our website this week, describes several initiatives we’ve undertaken to streamline our interactions and transactions with key stakeholder groups. In particular, we are focusing on enhancing licensing operations and critical interactions with licensees, and public access to regulatory documents.
As part of its guidance, OMB asked each agency to include in its plan three to five key customer service areas and to include a “signature initiative” demonstrating the use of technology to improve the customer experience.
The NRC chose online licensing for radioactive material license applications as its signature initiative. Under this initiative, our web-based licensing system will provide an online platform for individuals and organizations to apply for a new license, renew a license, or amend an existing license for the use of radioactive materials. It will also provide an opportunity for Agreement States to use the same licensing platform.
Additionally, the system will provide a current, nationwide repository for official radioactive materials licenses that will provide an authoritative source that federal and state regulatory agencies can use to verify the validity of a license.
Our plan also
• Streamlines the process for criminal history background checks
• Increases public engagement through improved information access using quick response codes and smartphone technology.
• Makes it easier for hearing participants to use our electronic hearing docket (through which the NRC provides access to docket materials related to High Level Waste and Reactors, Materials, and Other Hearings).
• Improves customer service with a new Web-based tool to solicit customer feedback about the NRC Public Document Room.
We hope you’ll take the time to read out plan. We welcome your comments on our planned initiatives and any other ideas you may have for streamlining and improving the way we interact with our stakeholders.
Francine F. Goldberg Co-Chair, Open Government Advisory Group
U.S. NRC Blog 
I think the admin of this website is in fact
working hard for his web page, since here every information is
quality based information.
As the winter draws on and our energy bills grows, new energy that lasts without endless pollution. Nuclear energy as yet is the only viable large long term option until something else arrives or we change the way we work and live.
A prime example is standing up one-stop shop contact centers to make finding information easier. We focus a lot on web and other social media, which is terrific, but the digital divide in this country is huge and many of the people that rely on government just don’t have access to these channels. Almost everyone has a phone.
When standing up a contact center, it’s important to establish and streamline your business case first, then apply the technology. This is true for any automation (see previous blog post).
A contact center must have strong quality control and measure both the quantity (number of calls per person per hour) and quality of calls (technical accuracy and customer experience). Contact centers in government are not the same as private sector, and special attention needs to be paid to this delicate balancing act.
A final note on government contact centers. Often staff who were trained to do something else (i.e. social workers) are moved to staff the new contact center. It’s extremely important to have a strong organizational change and transition component to help people adapt to the new environment and expections.
In short, a contact center is a great focal point for streamling and improving service. Pay attention to the People, Process and Procedures and driving the Technology and you will see success.
Thanks very much for taking the time to comment. I’ve passed your suggestions along to the staff who run our public-facing applications, which include the ones mentioned in the plan and several others. You might be interested to know that our public site uses the Forsesee Results tool to solicit feedback and we have found it very useful.
Fran Goldberg
Co-Chair, NRC Open Government Advisory Group
i agree the live chat is the best form for you give a good service costumer becouse the poeple only whit see the page have a a lot question so the service whit live chat that is the best
I just submitted a license amendment. The process was made more complicated because I received contradictory from a NUREG and a licensing reviewer. As part of this process you need to update the application form also.
I will be happy to be a beta reviewer for this endeavor.
I agree that citizens’ expectations of government are increasing and I think having focus on energy on the topic is really important.
Well,There is a lot of examples/ideas for agencies out there across government. I would like to share a couple of ideas here..
1.Tools to solicit feedback – there are actually a ton of tools here from Foresee Results surveys to RightNow to ideation sites like UserVoice, Ideascale, Get Satisfaction. Key is to embed the solicitation in the experience of the citizen (for example, right after a transaction….without proper promotion these feedback solutions usually fail)
2.Live Chat – My favorite thing for customer service. I hate when I have to call customer service. Love when there is a live chat box. A few government agencies have this – they all should.
3.Create internal/external FAQ and make it search friendly- What’s the first thing you do when needing customer service? You Google the problem. Government agencies should build strong FAQ but more importantly enable the communities sited in example #3 to build a robust library of information. If they organize this information with basic SEO (friendly with search techniques), you will decrease inbound requests as folks will have found the information needed.