The objective of this paper is to develop a customer-oriented service evaluation system (COSES) for the public sector. In our opinion, although customer orientation has become popular in the last decade, both researchers and practitioners still place too much emphasis on the operational management of the service system. In particular, we found that most models are designed for private sector use only. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive model for the public sector, which employs two dimensions: (1) customer-oriented service system design and management; and (2) organizational culture fostering. In addition, based on the proposed model and a multi-case empirical study, we develop a checklist for public agencies to assess their implementation of this concept.