Data for Retirement Applicant Customer Service Satisfaction Survey

Federal Data Catalog Identifier: US-GOV-SSA-1575

The Retirement Applicant Survey (RAS) measured satisfaction with the retirement application process. The survey obtained an overall service rating and ratings of key features of the application experience using our standard 6-point rating scale: excellent, very good, good, fair, poor, or very poor. We use the term "satisfaction" to refer to the combined excellent, very good, and good (E/VG/G) rating.

We sampled 10,000 retirement benefit applications awarded in October 2013. The sample included applications filed in person, on the telephone, or online. We conducted the survey by mail from November 2013 through February 2014. We received 7,338 completed questionnaires.

Respondents rated agency service overall extremely positively at 96 percent E/VG/G. Their ratings of other aspects of the application experience, including how quickly they received a decision, how well the agency explained the information they needed to know about their benefits, and the clarity of the benefit award letter, were equally high at 95 or 96 percent E/VG/G.

Nearly half of all respondents (47 percent) filed their application for retirement benefits online. The rest chose to file using one of the traditional methods, with in-person filing (40 percent) far outweighing telephone filing (13 percent).

We received 279 completed surveys from respondents who spoke Spanish. We compare responses from Spanish and English-speaking respondents in the dataset.