This paper examines the complex issue of customer satisfaction in the context of government social security services. It addresses why governments might wish to improve customer satisfaction, overviews the relevant customer satisfaction literature, and presents preliminary findings from part of a large study designed to concurrently ascertain whether service providers are attuned to recipient opinions, what is important to the recipients, and how they rate the existing service. Service providers perceived that recipients would have a more negative view of the service than actually reported by recipients. Main effects were also found for age and sex. Approximately 38 per cent of recipients indicated that they would try another provider if this became possible; some of this group were also amongst those who were highly satisfied with the existing service. Required frequency of contact was related to disloyalty. Although quality expectations influenced levels of satisfaction, combined predictors were only able to account for up to about 40 per cent of the variance
