The Critical Path to Better Citizen Engagement

The Critical Path to Better Citizen Engagement
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Citizens access a range of government services throughout their lifetime. This happens through multiple agencies and multiple channels, whether they are seeking assistance with health insurance coverage, accessing Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits, finding federal student aid, applying for a passport, or requesting any number of other services. These interactions – from beginning to end – become their citizen journey, and play an important role in their relationship with, and perception of, the government.

Historically, the process of accessing many government services has been filled with challenges that disrupt and negatively impact the citizen experience. Legacy IT systems and process silos have made it difficult to share information between agencies, resulting in duplicated efforts and redundant interactions for citizens. Regulatory concerns have further limited what can be done through online self-service and agencies’ limited fiscal resources have hindered the adoption of more advanced tools and training opportunities. As a result, it has often fallen to the citizen to learn how to best navigate their agency, rather than the agency determining how it can best engage with their citizen.

Shifting the customer service mindset

This approach simply does not work in today’s customer-centric environment, where more people expect their citizen journey to mirror their experiences with commercial businesses like Amazon or Apple. And, while today’s citizens are much more informed and comfortable with different channels of self-service, the majority of the population (more than two-thirds of users, according to our research) still wants to quickly connect with a person when they have a question or issue that they don’t believe can easily be resolved.

The government has made significant progress in meeting citizens’ heightened customer service expectations. Yet, there is still more to do in developing the processes, tools and techniques that can truly address what citizens need from government: a customer experience that not only delivers fast and efficient service through any channel, but makes the human element of government customer service smarter and more capable as well.

Taking the citizen journey beyond digital innovation

The future of citizen service cannot be based solely on providing digital services and pushing people to them. It must provide both “traditional” phone support and digital service platforms that deliver a connected, omni-channel experience capitalizing on the strengths of each platform, including website, mobile app, phone call, text message or in-person engagement.

It also requires modern citizen engagement centers, staffed with highly-trained call center representatives (CSRs) able to help with more complex issues, since modern consumers are more technologically savvy and will utilize self-service channels to handle many routine transactions. These CSRs must be able to quickly pick up the case at the point where the citizen was before he or she activates the engagement center. Citizens should not expect to have to repeat every detail of their issue and each step they have already completed when they left another channel and picked up the phone for further assistance. Government has not always met these expectations, and the citizen journey has historically been a cumbersome and often frustrating experience.

So, while hands-on, high-touch service isn’t going away, and advances in digital channels should be embraced and integrated, the most critical component of achieving better citizen engagement is ensuring that all assisted and self-service channels create a consistent and ultimately integrated experience, no matter what platforms citizens use. This will have tremendous impact in meeting citizens’ expectations and delivering a positive service experience.

A roadmap for federal, state and local agencies

Agencies looking to embrace the citizen engagement center revolution should start with a plan for securing short-term successes, both internally and externally, then moving toward more strategic, long-range ones. First, evaluate the state of the current customer experience and identify low-barrier areas for improvement, such as developing more effective CSR training, incorporating automation, streamlining web content, and deploying intelligent Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems to ensure that frequently asked questions are the first options offered to callers. Next, ensure that content is consistent across all agency platforms and that every interaction on every channel leads citizens to the same answer, thereby eliminating the frustration of getting different or conflicting responses from a website, phone call or in-person interaction. Then, address medium and long-term goals by focusing on more significant operational improvements, such as adding new channels, integrating data in real time, and investing in further enhanced workforce optimization and training tools.

Evolving from a traditional customer service model to a high-functioning citizen engagement center will require many organizational changes and will need time and effort. Guiding staff through this change, whether they are immediately enthusiastic or initially reluctant, is imperative to achieving a better citizen experience. Leadership must help them understand that these changes are fundamental to the long-term success of our government. Agencies that do not adopt a user-centric service model will not only continue to frustrate citizens, but with increased citizen demands and growing populations to serve, they will eventually run short of the resources they need to operate effectively.

By utilizing innovative service solutions that enhance the citizen journey and meet the new expectations of citizens, agencies can forge the path for better citizen engagement over the long term, establish themselves as helpful and easy-to-use resources, and more quickly and efficiently provide critical services to citizens. A continued focus on improving the citizen journey is fundamental to the future of efficient and cost-effective government services and engaged citizens.

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