Have you ever ordered a free publication, video, CD-ROM, or other product from the Federal government only to wait six weeks or more -- in some cases, a lifetime -- to receive the product? If so, what did you do? Did you try again, chalk it up to a frustrating and exhausting experience, or throw up your hands and mutter, "So this is what the old adage 'good enough for government work' really means?"

The Department of Education's Publication Center (ED Pubs) was determined to put an end to this kind of unacceptable customer service. What was their solution? They designed an entirely new structure to improve their publication and distribution system. In fact, it was so innovative and effective that ED Pubs earned Vice President Gore's prestigious Hammer Award for cutting red tape and putting its customers first.

Clues From Mystery Shoppers

The genesis of ED Pubs new structure came from an anonymous "mystery shopper survey" that it conducted in 1997. The survey results indicated that ED Pubs' publication production and distribution system needed a complete overhaul. Internal and external customers were often confused about how to obtain the agency's products. Mailing lists were incomplete and duplicative, the product inventory data was inaccurate, information on customer requests or distribution volume was non-existent, and the Department of Education was spending $800,000 a year to warehouse its publications, including many that were outdated. According to the survey, 22 percent of the publications requested by ED Pubs' customers never arrived at their final destinations. "A revamping of the system was sorely needed by the Department of Education," Jim Clemmens, a management analyst at the Department of Education said. "We had a very decentralized system in place, and customers were very frustrated in locating and obtaining products that they requested."