Thinking Beyond Government Tech Implementation to the Complete Digital Experience
By Dan Goldberg, Studio Senior Manager, Deloitte & Touche, LLP
The customer digital experience continues to improve at breathtaking speed, from how we order and return products with the tap on the phone screen, to instantaneous and secure access to our social and bank accounts, restaurant preferences, shopping recommendations, and grocery deliveries. The private sector typically leads the way, and as a recent Deloitte survey found, that’s driving demand from customers and constituents to receive a similar level of service and experience from their government agencies.
While you may think constituents prefer otherwise, in fact, 55% of survey respondents prefer to interact with state governments through websites while just 22% prefer in-person interactions. Despite the desire, only 25% of respondents frequently interact with government online, and satisfaction with those interactions can lag, with just 62% reporting they are satisfied (compared with 81% approval for private companies).
It’s no surprise, then, that many government agencies are taking cues from the private sector in how to modernize and enhance their own digital services. The State of Ohio, for instance, modelled private-sector best practices when it introduced a single sign-on solution called OH|ID, a cloud-based identity management platform that makes it easy for state residents to log on with one ID and interact with multiple state agencies. To date, nearly half of all Ohioans are utilizing OHID to conduct their state business.
And through its InnovateOhio Platform, the state recently began the foundational setup of a new content management system (CMS) from Contentful that will set the stage for the continued expansion to hundreds of other agencies, websites and apps across Ohio’s online ecosystem. This platform, paired with secure digital identity and payment systems as well as AI solutions, has the potential to deliver efficient, top-tier site performance while enhancing the user experience.
The most successful government organizations and agencies also use the introduction of new tech as the opportunity to better meet residents’ needs – which should be the goal of investing in improvements. In other words, building a flashy new website or digital payment system, or even implementing a cutting-edge AI tool, won’t do much if it’s not serving users’ needs.
However, if you don’t know what those are, how can you hope to provide quality service to your customers? In Deloitte’s experience, there are a few steps organizations can take to get that information and start improving people’s experience:
Learn more about residents by collecting qualitative and quantitative data – from applications and call center interactions, to focus groups and direct feedback.
Utilize analytics, AI, and research to derive insights and better understand customer needs and how they are (and are not) addressed in the current digital environment. Ideally, these insights are analyzed at both the agency level and across the state’s services delivery.
Based on this research, prioritize implementations that have the most potential to benefit residents and the state’s business – in some cases, this could be by helping customers help themselves.
If understood and prioritized effectively, these solutions can incorporate multiple agencies, and improve customer experience across in-person, call center and online interactions, including new self-service options. And while new tech can accelerate progress, our experience shows that thoughtfully identifying and addressing specific needs is the one true essential.
For instance, to meet Ohio residents’ need for a simple portal to connect with career and education support, Deloitte worked with the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to develop Ohio Career Navigator. The site enables Ohioans to find resources that will help them obtain in-demand skills, advance their education, and achieve their career goals, by giving people easy access to what they need to thrive, while downplaying departmental roles.
Solutions don’t even need to be visible to customers. As my colleague Simon Tam noted in a recent piece about AI implementations, Deloitte’s AI solutions are helping caseworkers and contact center employees in several states navigate and answer residents’ complex policy questions in real time. Constituents simply type a question into the application, and Deloitte’s NextGen Policy Engine explores hundreds or even thousands of pages of regulations to deliver a quick and accurate answer, behind the scenes.
It may not be what the customer sees when they come to a government website, but solutions like these are great examples of how a comprehensive strategy for more efficient and enhanced customer service delivery can be accomplished.
Check out more on the Deloitte digital experience survey here, and please reach out to me directly to discuss further.