The Agriculture Department’s Farm Services Agency has a top reputation for customer service but its in-person way of providing that service may be difficult to sustain, a report from the National Academy of Public Administration says.
The agency provides services including income support, disaster assistance, access to credit and resource conservation, what the Academy called a “vitally important role in supporting American agriculture.”
The FSA “enjoys a strong reputation for customer service. However, this reputation is based on an in-person service delivery model that faces a number of significant challenges, including budget constraints, increasing workload from program expansion, increasing demands to focus more intensively on outreach to historically underserved customer groups, new customer needs for assistance, staff retirements, and changes in technology and customer service delivery preferences,” it says.
“Also, in recent years, FSA has come under pressure to adapt its programs and delivery, as well as its outreach, to meet the particular needs of historically underserved and new and new/beginning farmers and ranchers,” it added.
The report recommended ways to improve the efficiency of service delivery, including greater use of online/self-service options, but cautioned that “a public agency must not pursue efficiency at the expense of customer groups that may not have access to these channels. For example, online service delivery offers efficiency and customer convenience, but only for those with reliable, high speed internet access.”
In addition, it recommended ways that FSA could “reduce its compliance workload to free up staff time for customer service without creating undue risk to program integrity.”
