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ALLISON MATAYA is Commentary|BY ALLISON MATAYA executivevicepresident of brand marketing and
customer experience at DMI.
Why CX in government is no longer optional
At a time of rising customer expectations, agencies must quantify and improve the way they serve the public
Customer expectations have changed dramatically in the past decade, pushing the bar for customer service standards ever higher. Salesforce reports that 80% of consumers say the experience an organization provides is just as important as their products and services. What’s more, 64% of consumers expect organizations
to interact with them in real time. Delivering customer service that lives up to those high standards is challenging.
In the federal sector, comprehensive customer experience (CX) programs largely have yet to be implemented. Citizens’ tax dollars fund critical services such as Medicare, Social Security and veterans’ benefits; therefore, CX in the public sector should be as good as or better than it is in the private sector. But after two consecutive years of improvement, citizen satisfaction with government services has dipped, according to
a recent report by the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
Although individual impressions
are subjective, a comprehensive CX program can quantify the impact of the government’s efforts by linking user feedback with an agency’s operational data and analytics. Such a program brings together real-time engagement metrics, operations data and other enterprisewide data points in one dashboard.
Once the current CX is measured, improvements can be made through service innovations such as 24/7 online virtual help desks and digitized forms. Instead of making telephone
callers wait until a representative
can speak with them, technology can now predict customers’ questions
and concerns and address them. AI-enabled chatbots can be integrated into routine calls and answer repetitive questions. Similarly, when digital forms replace stacks of paperwork, it is mutually beneficial: The customer has a streamlined experience, and the agency sees heightened productivity.
Comprehensive CX programs are recommended to help any enterprise understand every aspect of customer interaction and perception.
A comprehensive CX program involves three steps:
1. Gain an understanding of
the current CX through journey mapping. This exercise helps identify any negative elements undermining the customer experience, such as
a confusing website layout or long wait times for service. Service issues are often hidden from view, making them difficult to monitor, analyze and improve until it’s too late.
2. Quantify measurable benchmarks. Factors such as satisfaction, feedback, engagement
rates and agency deliverables can help provide a baseline of current performance and a meterstick to compare new solutions against.
For example, officials at Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles realized that lengthy in-person lines were hindering customer service
and bogging down workers, so the DMV now allows drivers to surrender license plates and vehicle registrations via the website rather than in person.
3. Implement and evaluate solutions. Using the example above, a CX program would monitor the results of the new policy on license plate and registration returns. If the solution outperforms the baseline, it should
be rolled out across the enterprise. Since Virginia implemented the online license plate service, more than 1,000 residents have taken advantage of the program. The high level of interest means additional states are likely to implement a similar solution.
Those three steps can empower agencies to identify and quantify negative moments in their CX, develop solutions for improvement, and then measure the performance of those improvements to calculate a clear return on investment. Once the cycle has been completed, agencies should identify the next negative experience that needs to be fixed or improved.
In the era of big data, comprehensive CX programs are recommended
to help any enterprise understand every aspect of customer interaction and perception. Although much has changed, the old adage that “the customer is always right” endures. n
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