Executive Summary
" - .-"-"-• "• ' - ' • t
&EPA Customer Service Plan
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EPA AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Mission
The people who work at the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) are dedicated to improving and preserving the
environment in this country and around the globe. Highly skilled
and culturally diverse, we work with our partners to protect
human health, ecosystems, and the beauty of our environment
using the best available science. We value and promote innova-
tive and effective solutions to environmental problems. We strive
to protect and sustain the productivity of the natural resources on
which all life and human activity depend.
Our Primary Customer
Our primary customer is the general public - all of us who
live and breathe and share the earth's environment.
Serving Our Intermediary Customers
Our ultimate success depends on how effectively we work
with and influence the actions of many other parties - including
international, federal, state, tribal and local governments, indus-
try, agriculture, small business and other non-government
organizations and individuals - that deliver environmental
protection.
To build a cooperative and supportive relationship with these
customers our goals are to handle all interactions in a fair,
courteous and professional manner and to provide a clear
understanding of the reasons for our actions.
Vision
We envision a world in which:
All individuals and institutions value the environment and
choose to act in a manner that ensures achievement of
sustainable environmental and economic goals.
• The natural balance of all living things is no longer
threatened, and all individuals - rich and poor, young
and old - share in the benefits of a healthy environment.
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EPA will strive to become an Agency recognized for:
Leadership in environmental protection and environmen-
tal science - domestically and worldwide.
Strong and effective working relationships with our
partners in environmental protection.
Integrity in the stewardship of our resources and the
management of our programs.
Customer Service Policy
We are committed to achieving customer service equal to
the best in business. We carry out our mission through increased
public participation, increased public access to information and
increased public access to decision-makers.
Customer Service Approach
Our approach to improving customer service is through the
following:
Public Access. We are committed to increasing the participation
of our customers in the policy and decision-making processes of
the Agency.
Listening to our Customers. We will listen to what our customers
tell us about the quality and value of the products and services
we provide and adjust our activities and resource allocation
decisions accordingly.
Outreach and Communicating with our Customers. We must
communicate with our customers so that those who need
environmental information know where they can obtain the
information they need in a form they can use.
Reinventing EPA: Customer Service Moves Ahead
Our reinvention efforts are designed to achieve greater
environmental results, improve communication with our custom-
ers and involve affected parties much more,directly in shaping
• our decision-making processes.
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Pilots 5, 6, and 7 will strengthen our intermediary customers'
ability to protect the environment through improving the awarding
of water grants to states, reinventing the permitting process and
working with our customers to achieve greater environmental
protection at less cost.
Next Steps
For these product lines, we have tentatively identified initial
customer service standards. For copies of our Customer Service
Plans please contact:
Office of Communications, Education and Public Affairs
•U.S. EPA
401 M Street, S.W. (1701)
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 260-7963
Over the next few months we will be using focus groups with
front-line employees and customers to test the validity of our
standards and establish benchmarks. We will also, by December
1994, publish customer service standards and develop imple-
mentation plans for additional key Agency-wide product lines. We
are committed to setting standards for our core business pro-
cesses and developing an Agency-wide customer service plan
that is aligned with our strategic plan and customer service
approach. By September 1996, in conjunction with our other
reinvention efforts, we will have published customer service
standards for all of our core business processes, product and
service lines.
Comments, Questions or Complaints
We want to hear from you about the quality of our service.
Please contact:
Office of the Administrator
Cooperative Environmental Management
Abby Pirnie
(202) 260-7567
Recycled/Recyclable
Printed with Soy/Canda Ink on paper that
contains at least 50% recycled fiber
100/F-94/003
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These reinvention efforts include:
The Common Sense Initiative will strengthen our ability to
understand and support key intermediary customers in their
delivery of environmental protection.
The Environmental Goals Roundtables initiated dialogues
with our customers across the country about our propos-
als for national environmental goals.
The Ecosystem Approach to Environmental Protection will
involve our customers in shaping environmental goals for
their communities, developing strategies to reach these
goals and measuring progress.
Streamlining and Increasing Access to the Regulatory De-
velopment Process will reduce cycle-time for product de-
livery and involve affected parties early on in the develop-
ment process.
Increasing Public Access to Environmental Data arid In-
formation is the focus of our Information Resource Man-
agement strategic plan, developed with our customers.
Increasing Emphasis on Citizen Involvement is provided
for in many of our efforts and legislative proposals.
State, Tribal, Local Advisory/Operating Committees are im-
portant forums for listening to several key intermediary
customers.
The Office of Pesticides Programs has conducted a pre-
liminary survey of several key customers to improve the
quality of services it provides.
The Agency is undertaking several major changes to in-
crease and institutionalize the connections with those who
use our research. ,
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• The Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
includes a new emphasis on compliance assurance to
parallel strengthened enforcement capabilities which will
provide greater environmental protection for the public.
The Permits Improvement Team will identify ways to
shorten the time necessary to issue a permit, improve
public participation in the permitting process, and will
encourage pollution prevention and the use of innovative
technologies.
EPA Region 8's Citizen Information Center in Denver,
which opened in the fall of 1993, serves as a central
point of contact for visitors and callers.
These activities demonstrate our commitment to work with
and listen to our customers so we can deliver greater environ-
mental protection.
Pilot Customer Service Projects
We are committed to setting clear performance standards for
our products and services, assessing how well we are meeting
those standards, whether they are the right ones and adjusting
our activities based on what we learn from those assessments.
Pilots 1,2, and 3 deal with how we respond to public inquir-
ies: In the Office of Communications, Education and Public
Affairs, we will test standards for handling incoming calls; in our
Region 3 Office in Philadelphia, we will test standards for han-
dling all incoming correspondence and customer assistance
lines; and in our Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Re-
sponse, we will be assessing the standards for managing our
hotline.
Pilot 4 will increase public access to information to improve
environmental decision-making through the Toxics Release
Inventory and Community Right to Know programs. We will
develop standard operating procedures for evaluating how well
we are meeting our customer service standards and for using the
results of those evaluations for improving what and how we
provide information.
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