FSA Web Site Enhancements

By: FSA Web Services

If you have visited the FSA Web site recently, you may have noticed our new Share Box available throughout the site.

This new Share Box provides our customers with easy access to several tools, such as our electronic subscription service, RSS feed service, AskFSA and a social media sharing tool. The below information profiles how each tool helps FSA communicate with site visitors.

Electronic Subscription Service 

The enhanced electronic subscription service, which was launched in September of 2008, allows site visitors to subscribe and receive information from FSA via email. Information currently available to our subscribers includes national and state press releases, national notices, scheduled reports from our Economic and Policy Analysis Staff (EPAS), Kansas City Commodity Operations (KCCO), and other Web page updates. We hope to be able to expand this service soon to include County Office Newsletter subscriptions. As of April 2009, we have over 20,650 subscribers and have sent over 1,118,013 email bulletins. 

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Feed Service

RSS is similar to our electronic subscription service. Our RSS feed service provides site visitors with access to selected news and information from the FSA site using an RSS reader tool.

AskFSA

FSA provides an interactive online knowledge base and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool called AskFSA. This feature, launched in 2005, enables our customers to get quick, correct and consistent answers regardless of which communication channel they choose – web or email. And, we've achieved a 97 percent web self-service rate, meaning that our customers are almost always able to find answers to their questions without the need to talk to an FSA employee or visit a local office.  Not only does AskFSA lower costs to the agency, it also provides a quick and hassle-free customer experience.  Easy answers lead to optimal customer experience so that everyone wins.

Social Media Sharing Tool

Our latest addition to the Web site makes it easy for our visitors to bookmark and share our content with others. By using the simple "Share" button, customers may send our content to social bookmarking services and social networks, which creates more traffic to FSA's Web site and increases our agency's outreach. While most social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace are blocked for employees on the USDA network, our customers are able to access these sites to share information within their social groups. With the help of this Share button, customers can easily repost links to our Web site content and increase the visibility of our agency's programs. You may also follow our updates on Twitter - http://twitter.com/usdafsa

Since we have added the Share Box to the FSA Public Web Site our customers have used the following services to share our content with other users.