Washington, D.C. — For the fifth straight year, the U.S. Mint has scored among the top performers in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), issued annually by the National Quality Research Center (NRQC) at the University of Michigan School of Business.
The Mint’s 84 score exceeds both government ( 68.6 ) and private sector ( 71.2 ) averages for the survey, and is on a par with e–commerce giant Amazon.com; BMW of North America; Nestle, USA, Pillsbury, Inc., and the Procter & Gamble Company. A score of 80 or more is considered world class customer service.
“We are gratified that our customers and the public have expressed such a high degree of satisfaction and confidence in our customer service and products,” said Mint Deputy Director John Mitchell. “It has been one of the most extraordinary and challenging years in the Mint’s 208–year history. The dedication and commitment of our employees has allowed us to fulfil the highest standards of government integrity and creditability, while at the same time being among the leaders in private sector efficiencies and practices.”
As one of the largest metal stamping manufacturers in the world, the Mint’s Circulating Business Unit in 2000 produced a record 27 billion total circulating coins, shattering 1999’s record demand for 20.4 billion total coins. More than a billion new dollar coins have been minted since January, making the new Golden Dollar the most successful dollar coin in history, in less than a year surpassing the 920 million Susan B. Anthony Dollars that went into circulation over 21 years.
The Mint’s Numismatic Business Unit provided a full complement of collectible, numismatic retail products, making nearly 500 products and options available, while sustaining the Mint’s number one market share in sales of gold, silver and platinum American Eagle bullion coins.
In its first full year of e–commerce, the online catalog at www.usmint.gov will realize $156 million in sales, placing the Mint among the nation’s top 20 e–tailers. And a remarkable 114 million Americans are now collecting the 50 State Quarters™ as the program completes its second year, with the New York quarter scheduled to be released in January 2001. With the program scheduled to run through 2008, demand for quarters has risen from between 1 and 1.5 billion quarters a year prior to its 1999 launch, to more than 4 billion in 1999, and 6 billion in 2000.
The Mint Protection Business Unit and the U.S. Mint Police fulfilled their demanding and critical role, safeguarding more than $100 billion in of the nation’s assets in precious metals entrusted to their custody.
The Mint in the past six years has been a leader in the government initiative to benchmark federal agency performance against the best in business and has participated in the ACSI survey since 1995. In 1998, the Mint implemented a state–of–the–art enterprise resource planning and retail system recognized as one of the best in industry, and just completed upgrade of that entire system. The system has been the platform for the Mint’s e–commerce development and continued excellence in financial management, and the Mint will soon earn its seventh consecutive unqualified opinion on its independently audited financial management statements and practices.
These achievements have enabled the Mint to eclipse all its previous strategic goals, generating revenues of $3.7 billion in 2000, and returning profits of $2.6 billion to the American public through the Treasury General Fund, reducing by that amount the debt the government must issue to finance its operations, and saving hundreds of millions of dollars of interest on the reduced debt.