According to IDC, governments are the world’s largest service providers, and every interaction with the public is an opportunity to provide a great citizen experience. Yet, according to IDC, the public sector continues to rank below almost every other sector for customer satisfaction when it comes to digital service delivery.
Governments are faced with several challenges related to digital service delivery, including increasing global regulations, interoperability standards, managing remote or distributed workforces and rising citizen expectations.
As citizens demand more and better digital services, it’s becoming increasingly important for governments to shift from a government-centric to a citizen-centric approach to digital public service delivery. Digital customer experience (CX) services can help improve citizen experiences while also expanding access to services to those who need it most.
The recently published IDC Analyst Brief, sponsored by OpenText, Government’s Deployment of Technology to Enhance Digital Customer Experience (doc #CA49840622BRO, December 2022) addresses how government agencies are transforming the delivery of citizen services. The IDC Analyst Brief explains they are doing this by placing citizens at the center and designing services to holistically meet citizens’ needs—with shorter timeframes, better accuracy, and higher satisfaction. Here is a preview of some of the findings.
The benefits of holistic digital citizen experience
The IDC Analyst Brief says that according to an American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) 2022 report, satisfaction with U.S. federal government services declined 2.6% in 2021, and satisfaction in efficiency and ease of government processes fell to 63% from 68% in 2019. These results indicate that agencies are not keeping pace with citizen expectations, and that the gap between private-sector and public-sector customer experience is widening. Using new technologies and implementing digital CX services can enhance employee and customer experience while improving customer satisfaction and building trust in government.
The IDC Analyst Brief gives the example of Estonia, where 99% of public services—including voting, filing taxes and accessing healthcare records—can be completed online. According to the Estonian government, these digitized public services have saved the country more than 1,400 years of working time since these projects have begun and 2% of its GDP annually.
In addition to significant time and cost savings, providing an exceptional digital citizen experience—one that delivers the right services to citizens at the right time—is much more likely to earn citizens’ trust. This requires taking a holistic view of government services and focusing on the customer journey and feedback, rather than individual touchpoints or transactions.
According to IDC, it also requires implementing integrated technology that improves both the front office customer experience and the back-office employee experience—strengthening organizational capability, technology, talent and leadership while enabling accessible and citizen-centric work.
What solution types are best?
The transition to a citizen-centric approach to digital public service delivery requires governments to focus their efforts on the customer’s perspective, using human-centered design that incorporates citizen input and continuously measuring success of these efforts.
When designing digital CX services, governments need to ensure they have the right technology solutions to meet their needs—and the needs of their citizens. Solutions that will best help governments on their digital CX journey are those that prioritize information technology and include enterprise content management, media management, communication management, customer experience management and analytics technology to derive insights from information.
How an Experience Platform for Cities can help
With a digital Experience Platform solution, governments can transform citizen services, delivering omnichannel communications that drive timely action and creating consistent experiences across departments, branches and the agency as a whole.
Experience Platform for Cities from OpenText™ helps governments create and deliver citizen experiences that are optimized, personalized and highly efficient. By putting content at the heart of citizen engagement, every touchpoint is an experience that helps serve the individual—not just to meet expectations, but to exceed them.
Read the IDC Analyst Brief Government’s Deployment of Technology to Enhance Digital Customer Experience to learn more about improving citizen services at your agency.
