A survey released today by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows that citizens' views of government websites are moving up to being on par with their opinions of private sector sites for the first time. Measuring 291,000 citizen responses to 104 federal agency websites, the E-Government Satisfaction Index reached 75.2 on a 100 point scale, vs. "e-retail" at 82 and "online news and information" at 74. (It should be noted that offline government came in at 68.9 on the scale.)

“It’s remarkable to see so many e-government websites in the high 80’s and even in the 90’s,” said University of Michigan Professor Claes Fornell, who heads up the ACSI, founded there in 1994. “The stereotype is that government is always inferior to the private sector, but we may start to see those perceptions change when it comes to e-gov initiatives.”

Broken down by category, the report identifies E-commerce/Transaction websites as the most favorably viewed, up over the past quarter from 77.6 to 81.5. Career/Recruitment is up from 75.7 to 77.7 (although only 4 sites were in that category). Portals and main government sites were up 74.1 to 75.6, and finally news and information sites (the majority) were up 72.5 to 73.9.

Top marks by site went to the Social Security Retirement Estimator and the main SSA site. Other high scoring sites included NASA, Medline Plus, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Peace Corps, the Navy and the CIA recruitment site. The report didn't list the bottom scorers.

According to Larry Freed, President and CEO of ForeSee Results, sponsor of the ACSI E-Government Index, "this is the largest quarter-over-quarter jump in satisfaction since the index was started six years ago." Freed indicated that the change does coincide with Obama's administration, but also credits the teams working for the past several years on improving federal websites. The report summary noted: "Though only time will tell if scores stay high, it seems that the technology leadership of the Obama Administration is finally beginning to have an effect."

Full report is available by download after filling out a form on the ForeSee site. Twitter hashtag #ACSI.