Page 2 - FCW, September/October 2021

HOW TO TURN ‘KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER’ TO ‘KNOW YOUR USER’
Seamless digital customer service experiences, where purchases and requests
are understood and even predicted by online businesses – think Amazon.com – have become expected by users for government agencies.
Acxiom wants to bring similar experiences to government agencies so the public can benefit. Instead of the “know-your- customer” mantra on the commercial side, Acxiom
wants governments to take a “know-your-user” approach to services.
“Consumers expect that
when an offer gets made
it applies to them,” said
Clark Wooten, managing
director at Acxiom. “There’s
an expectation that the
online merchant knows
who you are, knows what you have purchased, and knows which brands you have done business with in the past.”
Wooten said Acxiom aims to take this smooth, seamless online experience one step further by understanding people better and then acting on good information. In doing so, they can deliver improved public services.
“What we’re after is collecting, analyzing, adding to, and acting on data specific to a person in a privacy-compliant way,” Wooten
said. “An agency may have three emails and two home addresses in a database, so how does that agency make sure it knows who’s the right person to make the correct decision about information that the user needs to get the best experience possible from the agency?”
In the case of the pandemic, who’s the right person to get a
The federal government could also offer this experience, where a veteran could log into a portal and view their veteran’s benefits, IRS tax information, medical data, and social security information. And if, for example, Veterans Affairs created such a portal and then worked with Acxiom, Wooten said private sector companies could do a better job making discount offers to veterans.
vaccine if a region
was in short supply based on what they know about people and health? Today, the information gets stored in silos and doesn’t talk to other silos, which makes agencies operate with antiquated systems that are not data-driven.
Governments can benefit from
a data-driven approach. States should consider a centralized portal where users can go online and view the status of their property taxes, driver’s license and car registration, and a history of emissions tests.
even be veterans, we could target discount offers to the correct people,” said Wooten.
So in the future, when a user needs government information, they can easily find it on a centralized portal, and if they need to call-in, the customer service person will have a more complete picture of the user. The commercial sector has been doing this for several years. It’s time for governments to bring that same consumer experience to the public sector.
“Consumers expect that when an offer gets made it applies to them”
Clark Wooten, managing director at Acxiom.
“In the early days of the Internet, emails went to everyone, but with the technology we have today,
that’s no longer necessary,” said Wooten. “Instead of sending out thousands of emails to people who might not
Learn More at www.acxiom.com/government-public-sector