Page 23 - FCW, November/December 2019

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In this instantly connected world,
a federal agency cannot just look at a one-way “push” of communications to the public.
in other channels where the public may be looking for answers, such as search engines and digital assistants.
We are aggregating these touchpoints into a customer experience management analytics platform and creating some alerting capabilities to surface “hot” issues, as well as having our 2020 campaign optimization team review analytics for emerging trends to monitor and react to.
How is the bureau addressing customer experience concerns in the 2020 census?
Because our goal for the 2020 census is to count everyone once, only once and in the right place, we’re giving people multiple options for how to self-respond — online or by phone in addition to the traditional mail- in option — and we are taking extra steps to reach people in special circumstances.
We have launched an expanded Partners webpage at 2020Census.gov to provide a one-stop for our many partners to easily find news, information and resources to help them engage respondents in their communities.
As a result of the respondent journey mapping, we implemented an expanded social care team this summer to provide both chatbot and agent support via inbound direct messages on social media channels. We also launched social listening to identify issues and opportunities in the total conversation being shared publicly about the Census Bureau and the 2020 census.
We are also working on an expanded, search-optimized set of frequently asked questions to post online and share with frontline personnel to provide consistency of response to inquiries. We also added
a webpage to 2020Census.gov called
“Fighting 2020 Census Rumors” where
users can check for debunked rumors or report directly to us any suspicious activities or incorrect information that they have encountered related to the 2020 census.
Finally, the Census Bureau has established an integrated “fusion center” with representatives from across the agency and key partners to help track and rapidly respond to disinformation or other activities that are negatively impacting response to or operation of the census.
What advice would you offer other agencies?
First, in this instantly connected world,
a federal agency cannot just look at a one-way “push” of communications to the public. Agencies need a full 360-degree view of the information being pulled in by our customers or pushed to them to know the right messaging, channels, services and features we will need to provide. Second, we need to ensure a true omni-channel experience so that people get consistent, accurate and channel-appropriate answers via whatever channel they use.
On the first issue, agencies need to assess and monitor all the channels, not just their own, that are influencing their customers
to ensure that the right message is getting
to the right audience at the right time. For example, what does your agency “sound” like on digital assistants and smart speakers? Does it give a coherent, correct answer or
no answer at all? What is your customers’ “search experience”? If they search on
Google, Bing or another third-party engine or search your own website, what phrases are they using? Are they getting the correct answer from you or incorrect information from someone else because your website
used formal language such as “estimated population of the United States” when the user searched using plain language such as
“how many people live in the US”? On others’ public social media channels and posts, are your users being advised to do the opposite of what they should do?
To deliver on the second piece of advice — a true omni-channel experience — agencies need to integrate across silos and program areas to rapidly surface, aggregate, triage
and prioritize addressing the customer pain points and “moments that matter.” They
then need to develop solutions — business processes, human resources policies and goals, and technology — that can deliver the right information in the right format to all the relevant channels. And remember, solutions don’t always have to cost a lot. It could be as simple as creating an internal email list of
all frontline personnel and sending them the new FAQs added to your website that day with links to them so that the answers to the hot issues customers are asking about are immediately available to everyone who may need to respond to customers.
Overall, the important thing is to include the direct voice of your customer whenever possible and the proper surrogates when actual customers aren’t available. Your experienced contact center and social media agents and team leads, field representatives, subject-matter experts who are routed customer questions, and active partners who talk, email or chat directly with your customers should all have a seat at the table when providing input and helping prioritize what customer pain points are the most important. The closer you are to the customer, the more your opinion should matter as it relates to improving customer experience.
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