In December 2009, ZUS customer service standards and procedures were elaborated, together with their implementation timetable. Those standards and procedures were refined in subsequent years.

China has the largest social insurance system in the world covering nearly 1.4 billion people and includes old-age, medical, work injury, maternity and unemployment insurance schemes. There are more than 8,000 social insurance agencies at and above the county level in China, with nearly 180,000 staff, undertaking 1.99 billion individual service transactions annually. Due to historical reasons, many branch-based operational agencies follow different management and service standards, and do not even have a unified name. This practice is inefficient and errors easily occur.