Satisfaction with official statistics producers

Abstract

The national statistical institutes (NSIs), the pillars of official statistics, have become increasingly aware of the importance of serving their users well. Several quality initiatives require NSIs to monitor satisfaction of their users. However, practical implementation of this obligation is left to the discretion of every institution, as relevant theoretical foundations and operationalization are lacking. To fill that gap, this paper reviews the relevant theoretical bases and proposes a conceptual model for measuring user satisfaction. Data from a satisfaction survey of official statistics users in Slovenia was used to empirically verify the model. The results suggest that monitoring and managing satisfaction is imperative for producers of official statistics. They also confirm that technical quality (quality of official statistics data) is of utmost importance, as long as users get high-quality data they are not so sensitive to the quality of service delivery. However, the quality of service delivery is more important for infrequent and novice users.