U.S.

DEPARTIMENT OF DEFENSE

CUSTOMER SERVICE PLAN

October 24, 2011

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Department of Defense (DoD) is America's oldest and largest government agency. With our
military tracing its roots back to pre-Revolutionary times, the Department has grown and evolved
with our nation. It is huge by any standard, consisting of more than several hundred thousand
individual buildings and structures located at more than 5,000 different locations or sites. In
terms of people and operations, we are more diverse and busier than just about all of the Nation’s
largest private sector companies. The Department has more than 3 million employees and a
2011 base budget of about $549 billion. Wal-Mart, by comparison, has a budget of about $227
billion and employs about 1.3 million people. Military health care alone provides a wide range
of services to over 9 million beneficiaries, including veterans served by the Department of
Veteran Affairs.

The Department is committed to consistently providing a quality customer experience through

the continuous improvement of customer service delivery across many diverse lines of business
and services. This commitment was recently reinforced by the President’s Executive Order
13571, “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” April 27, 2011, and
Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-11-24, “Implementing Executive Order
13571 on Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” June 13, 2011,
requiring Federal agencies to develop customer service plans. The goal of customer service in
DoD is to ensure customers receive increasingly better service, through the real-time adoption of
process improvements and supporting technologies that focus on timeliness, accuracy, and
responsiveness.

Continuous improvement of customer service across the DoD is supported by a large set of
policies and specific activities, which include ensuring the accessibility of information and
services to Americans with disabilities; automating work flows; ensuring discovery through
centralized and federated search; improving confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of
information; and across the board compliance with laws and Federal regulations. The
Department and the DoD Chief Information Officer are particularly pleased to showcase an
example of many such efforts: The Customer Service Improvement Initiative (CSI2) by a
Defense Agency, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), widely known as the
organization that provides “myPay.gov,” the online personal pay management service. This
strategic initiative will maintain first class customer service and product delivery by creating a
responsive, continually evolving, and dynamic customer service environment through
accelerated use of new products and services, as well as adoption of cutting-edge technologies,
driving optimum customer service. A summary description of this effort follows.

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SIGNATURE INITIATIVE

Overview

To continuously increase the quality of customer service provided to its 6.4 million customers,
DFAS established the CSI2, which will ensure consistent delivery of first class customer service
and products across the Agency to achieve a more customer focused culture through three
primary areas of focus: Customer, Communication, and Quality. While CSI2 will not eliminate
redundancies in the short term, it will greatly improve the efficiency of several DFAS customer
service processes. Timing: Target for the following services: 2011 - 2016. Milestones and
objectives are reviewed and updated each year.

SERVICE 1: ENHANCE CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

DFAS Corporate Communications & Customer Service Improvement Initiative Team

Overview

Enhance communication and feedback channels by developing tools to be more inclusive of

modern day customer expectations. Refresh the DFAS.mil environment to allow customers to
access important information, processes and forms. This will improve transparency and
education for customers on how DFAS operates. The DFAS Facebook Page and YouTube
Channel will complement the DFAS.mil experience by providing real time updates and
information. DFAS will use Facebook as a communication channel to collaborate with
customers and gain feedback and insights on new opportunities to improve customer service.
DFAS Facebook has over 56,000 fans and content has been viewed 17,000,000 times. DFAS
has made over 260 posts and resolved over 2,500 issues with an average turnaround time of less
than 2.5 days. Additionally, DFAS has uploaded five instructional videos which have been
viewed over 173,000 times. These videos range from logging into myPay to helping civilian
employees correctly fill out their travel forms. Facebook and YouTube are used to push urgent
information like updates to the myPay log-in procedures to the Continual Resolution Agreement.

DFAS will leverage advancing technology and develop the myPay website to accommodate a
mobile environment in which customers may access "on-the-go" information pertaining to their
leave and earnings status.

The myPay website receives an average of 25 million logins per month with over 800,000 of
those logins from mobile devices. DFAS.mil receives over 2 million visits per month.

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Key Customer Groups

DoD military and civilian personnel, retirees and annuitants; major DoD contractors and
vendors; customers outside the DoD
 The Executive Office of the President
 The Department of Veterans Affairs
 The Department of Energy
 The Department of Health and Human Services
 The Environmental Protection Agency
 The Broadcasting Board of Governors
A total of about 6.5 million customers.

Challenges

Low awareness of the services and products DFAS provides; high call volume; long processing
times.

Featured Actions

Refresh DFAS.mil information in plain language for easy understanding. Establish a DFAS
presence on social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube to support DFAS.mil, push urgent
information, and solicit more feedback to create business solutions. Encourage traditional
telephone customers to use DFAS online services for faster overall service. Advertise online
addresses of DFAS products and services in leave and earnings statements.

SERVICE 2: CASUALTY BENEFITS APPLICATION PROCESS

DFAS Leverage Technology Initiative and Retired and Annuitant Pay Teams

Overview

DFAS administers benefits to retirees. Upon the death of a retiree, the surviving beneficiary,
usually next-of-kin, must report the loss and complete a casualty care package to receive
benefits. The new service, through automation, is projected to cut cycle time and improve
accuracy, while simplifying the process for customers.

Key Customer Groups

DoD military retirees and annuitants - about 2.6 million customers.

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Challenges

Long processing times; high call volume; low awareness of service; error rates in data entry.

Featured Actions

Create a web-based application that will allow customers to complete forms -- and DFAS to
process them -- faster and more effectively. Establish a notification system that will keep
customers informed of the statuses of their requests.

SERVICE 3: ENHANCE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK MECHANISMS

DFAS Customer Service Improvement Initiative & Strategic Capabilities Office

Overview

DFAS offers customers (both external and internal) multiple mechanisms to provide feedback on
services provided. Feedback tools provide opportunities to submit feedback daily, weekly,
monthly, quarterly and annually. The feedback and related data are analyzed and trended for
improvement opportunities, early warning signs, and timely recovery efforts.

Prior to 2009, DFAS received limited customer feedback on day-to-day operations. In 2009,
CSI2 developed a standardized process to solicit routine feedback to address that gap. Since
implementation, DFAS has distributed over 1.3 million surveys and received over 100,000
submissions. In addition to the standard daily survey process, DFAS also conducts an annual
survey to solicit customer feedback. In 2011, DFAS distributed 76,245 surveys and received
11,845 submissions.

Key Customer Groups

DoD military and civilian personnel, retirees and annuitants - over 4.5 million customers.

Challenges

Obtaining customer information to research and respond to issues timely; survey distribution and
return rates; data analysis and distribution.

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Featured Actions

Establish a communications plan for feedback analysis results; continue survey standardization
and implementation in customer-facing functions; use feedback analysis results for process
improvements.

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