There are fascinating changes in the way the U.S. government is looking at customer experience. Even if you work for a state and local agency, your customers’ expectations will be impacted by these changes at the federal level. This increased attention comes from the Executive Order (E.O.) issued on December 13, 2021 “Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government.” This E.O. brings best practices for digital transformation to key government agencies and programs. Let’s explore the key definitions outlined in the E.O. and connect them to key processes.
Federal digital transformation definitions
Section 3 of the E.O. includes definitions relevant to the order. The following terms are defined;
- customer,
- customer experience,
- customer life experience,
- equity,
- High Impact Service Provider (HISP,)
- human-centered design,
- and service delivery.
The term customer applies to individuals as well as companies, citizens as well as non-citizens, tribes, contractors, and other individuals or entities that may interact with government services.
Customer experience includes the satisfaction and perception of the interactions with the “agency, product or service.”
Customer life experience signals the triggering event for the service interaction, which is a key concept from customer experience research that emphasizes understanding context.
“The term ‘equity’ means the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.” Including this concept earlier in the process will lead to lower ongoing redesign costs, as the service design teams will know more about the scope and diversity of the audience as they design the services for optimal performance for all customers.
High Impact Service Providers (HISP) identifies opportunities to improve experiences where the size of the affected customers is large and/or the impact of the service to the individual is critical. For example, filing income tax forms would likely have the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) identify the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) as a HISP, because a massive amount of American adults file income tax forms annually. But less common customer experiences with a large impact to an individual, like ensuring a VA patient receives life-sustaining medications on time, also warrant a HISP designation.
Lastly, human-centered design and service delivery are defined to ensure that the services are designed around the customer and the services function at a level to ensure completion of the government to customer delivery process. Customer journey mapping is an important concept in this E.O., but it is not called out for definition.
Follow these definitions through the customer experience processes
Typically, a CX professional would look at a customer lifecycle journey, maybe with a journey map to categorize elements of successful service delivery to ensure that a positive customer experience. For a government service, it is the same. Let’s break down a government service into smaller components to discover the most likely process improvements that conform to the desired outcomes.
We might be tempted to start with the application process because that’s the first interactive UI step. However, all services have a first-time application. Generally, there are some new acronyms, a list of documentation requirements, or other specialized knowledge needed to go through the application process. Before a customer successfully applies for a service, that customer must understand the requirements, develop expectations and learn about the process. Paying close attention to the equity and human-centered design concepts here may offer the greatest savings later. Not all customers will have the latest devices with the latest features and available broadband access.
Digital processes must accommodate uploads of images, photographic scans and other data entry from customers while remaining in the defined guidelines. On the agency side, you may need to add more OCR and scanning technology. You may look at AI, ML and NLP tools to clean up images, check for errors and adjust for poor image quality. Where you locate these services may shift processing work away from the customer to deliver a streamlined service.
After a customer applies for a service, they expect status messages at key intervals. The customer should be clear on the status of the service. You can deliver this via a second channel conformation, like an email, SMS, or push notification to confirm receipt. Not doing this can result in call center expenses that are easily avoided with a quick confirmation text or email to acknowledge receipt. When the service is successfully applied for, the delivery may need to be digitally transformed. This will include integrating payments, direct deposit, communications, document delivery, or other steps.
Making it personal
With this E.O., we are incorporating some new terminology and concepts into the government customer experience. It’s an exciting time. You may start with some basic journey mapping concepts. Our next article on this topic will cover some of the agencies and sample experiences mentioned in the E.O. to help us think of new ways to improve service for local, state and federal government customers.
