9/19/08 - Customer Satisfaction High with MyFloridaMarketPlace

9/19/08 Customer Satisfaction High with MyFloridaMarketPlace

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

~ 93 percent overall satisfaction with Florida's Web-based purchasing systems~

TALLAHASSEE-Department of Management Services (DMS) Secretary Linda H. South announced today that 93 percent of MyFloridaMarketPlace (MFMP) customers are satisfied overall with the system and its services, according to the latest customer satisfaction survey. MFMP is the state's Web-based system for state buyers and vendors.

"To date, MyFloridaMarketPlace has saved the state $78 million through strategic sourcing by following a rigorous methodology to aggregate spending and leverage the state's buying power to negotiate optimal state term contracts," said Secretary South. "Our customers receive ongoing training and new tools from MyFloridaMarketPlace to continuously improve their work in purchasing and payment processing. These survey results are a testament to the success of our efforts."

The August survey of 1,400 active MFMP customers in purchasing, and finance and accounting, had a 24 percent return rate, 5 percent more than last year. Those two groups use MFMP more than any other group. The majority of survey participants used MFMP for more than two years.

Ninety-four percent of purchasing respondents stated they are "moderately to very satisfied" with the purchasing tool, up from 89 percent in August 2007. Ninety-two percent of finance and accounting customers report being "moderately to very satisfied" with their ability to process invoices, a 7 percent increase from last August.

"The survey results show MyFloridaMarketPlace continues to surpass all expectations," said Division of State Purchasing Director Charles Covington. "When we issued the baseline survey in 2006, customer satisfaction was at 80.5 percent. I am proud of the increase to 93 percent overall satisfaction over the past two years. Our team members are listening to our customers and delivering improvements to increase efficiency and user-friendliness."

Through its robust system, MFMP responds quickly to progressive policy initiatives, such as Governor Crist's green executive order where the state enhanced the MFMP system to flag qualifying green products in electronic catalogs with a 'globe' icon. Additional system enhancements such as the ability to "mass edit" specific fields across a transaction created time savings for state employees.

"The Department of Management Services is customer-service driven and these improvements demonstrate our ability to improve the way we do business," said Chief of State Purchasing Operations Walt Bikowitz. "MyFloridaMarketPlace continues to provide an effective and efficient approach to conducting the state's business, and we appreciate customers' validation of that through their responses."

DMS teamed with Accenture to develop and launch MyFloridaMarketPlace in 2003. Since its inception, the system issued more than 576,000 purchase orders and processed more than 849,000 invoices. There are more than 100,000 registered vendors, including 33,000 minority-owned businesses. To date, MyFloridaMarketPlace has supported more than $5.5 billion in total spending for goods and services.

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