"EDS stands to reap financial rewards when NMCI customer service levels reach certain benchmarks, beginning at 85 percent. As customer satisfaction levels rise, EDS has the potential to earn as much as $100 per NMCI 'seat' for each financial quarter, according to program officials."
A follow-up
article in Government Executive Magazine sheds (a little) more light on the NMCI "survey results" released by EDS Corporation earlier this year. An important take away from the piece is the fact that NMCI stands to make money -- a welcome change for them and NMCI -- if the satisfaction level reaches 85 percent. They just reached 80 percent satisfaction and are closing in on the 85 percent threshold. Wow, this NMCI thing must really be working well!
Hmmmm, let us look at the finer points of the "survey":
1. The survey was designed, constructed, distributed, collected and analyzed by EDS Corporation, the same company that stands to gain financially from a high satisfaction percentage.
2. The questions have not been released for review.
3. The sample size and response rate of the survey has not been released.
4. The detailed results (e.g. response statistics for individual questions) have not been released.
5. The Navy has expressed confidence in the survey results and EDS.
Interesting. Not sure which Navy officials GE Magazine interviewed to determine that they had confidence in the results but it was apparently someone who hasn't taken a high-school science class.
The article goes on to offer several quotes from national pollsters and statisticians such as the Gallup Organization, stating how there could be an appearance of impropriety in the fact that EDS did their own survey and now refuses to release details. Really? Wow.
Unlike the previous GE article on the survey, (see reference
elsewhere on nmcistinks.com) for this article GE actually managed to track down someone who took the survey. The user reported that he was asked questions like, "Was the help desk person polite?" to which he was forced to respond honestly in the affirmative. However he said there was no opportunity for him to footnote that response with, "However, the help desk person failed to do anything about my problem." Another satisfied user!
Again, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this entire episode is the Navy's overt support for the "survey" process and results. The official position of the Navy is that releasing the details of the study would compromise their ability to successfully conduct future surveys. How profound.
A final note. We should thank the folks at publications like Government Executive Magazine and Federal Computer Week for digging these stories out of the back rooms. I can only hope that congressional staffers and watchdog organizations are reading them as fervently as we are.
