Page 20 - FCW, May/June 2020

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WHEN STATE GOVERNMENTS
began closing schools and
directing Americans to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, people
flocked to the web for reliable information about the potentially deadly illness. Visits
to the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization rose to 45.8 million during the week of March 9 to 15 — a 425% increase over the rates in mid-January, according to Statista. The CDC alone had almost 934 million page views in March.
Agencies were already under pressure to improve the customer experience (CX), but now they saw just how critical it is to provide information that’s easy to find and available in multiple formats.
The government’s ability to offer meaningful digital engagements has long trailed behind that of the private sector. In the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s “Federal Government Report 2019,” citizen
satisfaction with federal services fell for
the second consecutive year — to 68.1 on a 100-point scale. The decline has “virtually [erased] the large gains made between 2015 and 2017,” according to ACSI.
The results are based on four key drivers
of citizen satisfaction: the timeliness and ease of government processes, the professionalism and courtesy of customer service, perceptions of government website quality, and perceptions of the quality of information being provided.
Despite such setbacks, lawmakers and agency leaders at the federal, state and local levels are making efforts to improve the digital experience for government customers. For example, the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act requires federal agencies to modernize websites, digitize services and forms, accelerate the use of e-signatures, and improve the overall customer experience.
The act’s goals include creating government websites that are accessible, consistent in appearance, easily searchable, secure, user-
centric and mobile-friendly.
In a recent FCW survey, 61% of
participants said their agencies have already begun modernizing websites, 58% are digitizing forms, 51% are implementing e-signatures and 26% have begun providing personalized content.
CX also figures prominently in the President’s Management Agenda, which
uses the term “customer experience” 16 times, and the Trump administration has made improving CX a cross-agency priority (CAP) goal. In addition, the Modernizing Government Technology Act helps fund agencies’ purchases of new IT, and the Office of Management and Budget’s Circular A-11 has been updated to include a section on managing CX and improving service delivery.
State and local governments are focused on improving CX, too. The National Association of State CIOs cites modernization and customer relationship management among
its members’ top 10 priorities for 2020. And the National Association of Counties’ 2019
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FORGING TIGHTER LINKS
with customers
The pressure is intensifying for agencies to provide a customer experience on par with that of the private sector
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Gluiki/Shutterstock/FCW Staff