Government operations and workforce

Executive Order 12862: Setting Customer Service Standards

President: Bill Clinton

Directed public-facing agencies to identify customers, survey service needs, publish standards, benchmark performance and address complaints.

Status: In effect.

Is Executive Order 12862 still in effect? Yes. Continuing service directive; later policies supplemented it.

What does Executive Order 12862 do?

EO 12862 directed agencies providing significant public services to survey customers, publish standards, measure results and address complaints. A 2010 GAO review of 13 selected high-contact federal services found that all compared performance with their service standards, while GAO recommended making standards and results easier for customers to find. The selected services were not a representative sample of all federal services. Later presidential and OMB guidance continued the service-management framework.

Administration position: The order said federal service should equal the best comparable service in business. That was an aspirational management standard, not a guarantee of a particular result for every customer.
SignedSeptember 11, 1993
Covered bodiesExecutive agencies providing significant direct public services
Survey report deadlineMarch 8, 1994

Before and after

Before the order

Agencies managed public service under program-specific law without this government-wide benchmarking directive.

After the order

Covered agencies published service standards and used surveys, benchmarks and complaint systems in management.

Who had to do what

Agency / officeActionTiming / position
Public-facing agenciesIdentify and survey customers and post measurable standardsInitial work in 1993–1994; continuing management
Agency leadersUse satisfaction information in performance and resource decisionsAs information became available
AgenciesPublish understandable customer-service plansBy September 8, 1994

What happened next

EO 12862 signed.

The initial public-plan deadline arrived.

GAO reviewed standards and results for 13 selected high-contact federal services.

EO 13571 expressly described EO 12862 as an existing service requirement and added further policy.