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Italian e-Government: Put a Smiley on Your Experience at the Post Office

In an attempt to bring Italy’s, infamous for inefficiency, public sector to heel Renato Brunetta, Italy’s Public Sector and Innovation Minister, has come up with a darling little scheme which Italy’s citizens can use to register their approval or not of the performance of offices dealing directly with the public.
A series of touch screens are to be introduced into a series of public offices. On aforementioned touch screens will be three smiley faces, which Italian citizens can use to indicate their level of satisfaction with the service received. Green Smiley face equals ‘all well and good’, yellow smiley face means ‘OK, but could do better’, whereas red smiley face indicates that the service provided by the office concerned was way below par.

This smiley face strategy is certainly original, and Brunetta himself has been speaking of a ‘little, big revolution’. By the end of June, Italy will boast around 300 of these smiley face touch screens. Some will even be found within Italy’s notoriously queue ridden post offices too. Brunetta has stated that he wants people to be able to compare the performance of one office with another. But will this touching scheme actually work?

Source: Blog from Italy