With the emergence of Customer Experience or CX in the private sector, are we finally going to see the same traction in the Public Sector? Yes, the C can stand for Citizen Experience.
I think we can all agree that Public Service has lived by the oldest CX metric around - Elections - but these are far and few between and let's face that they are also more of a testament to elected officials than the Public Service as a whole. It's been a 20 year journey to get us from User Experience (UX) to a meaningful discussion around Customer Experience, Employee Engagement and Customer Success.
2000s: The digital experience - User Experience on the Web, Mobile and Social Media were largely the focus with government.
2010: We start to see investments in CRM and Contact Centre solutions to proactively manage volume.
2015: A shift toward Omni-channel - Workforce Optimization, Predictive Analytics and Quality Assurance.
Fast-forward to 2019:
1) Procurement trends:
The City of Brampton recently issued an RFP for "the development and delivery of a Customer Experience (CX) Strategy that will serve as the corporate blueprint for customer centricity." I have to give this the shout-out it deserves - perhaps biased by the recent Light Rail Transit launch issues experienced in Ottawa.
2) The Notion of Productization:
Yes, governments sell products and services...finally, there's a call for Product Management Strategy and Experts. What does this mean for Public Sector? Can it manage it's offers across department silos, with the same agility found in the Private Sector? The answer is Yes.
Is there a case or a need for as-a-Service and subscription models? In some departments for sure.
3) Inclusive language and social selling:
Are services and language biased? Is gender required on a form? How do you integrate pronouns into your standard business language? Are you engaging communities in a meaningful way? How do you ensure your product features are not unconsciously biased toward a community of citizens? Are they accessible?
4) What do the Voices of the Citizen and the Public Servants that serve them look like and what's the dashboard of 2020 and beyond?
More investment in Social Marketing and Public Opinion Research? Never hurts but we need a hard shift.
First call resolution, predictive analytics and routing, bot technology on digital channels and through contact centres is the obvious low hanging fruit.
How about Crowdsourcing within the Public Servant base?
Is it a Customer Effort Score? The introduction of Net Promoter Scores? Call back programs? Yes! To shift to a full CX model, we need to introduce meaningful change.
5) We have CIOs in many departments, but do we need Chief Experience Officers?
What would this mean to Marketing and Communications, Client Service and IT teams? Let's start the conversation.
Blog photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash