Can the Public Sector Meet the Growing Demand and Need for Digital Services? MARKET TRENDS REPORT
Executive Summary As government agencies move increasingly into providing services digitally, the importance of customer satisfaction with online transactions is critical. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformations for agencies, as entire workforces moved from the office to home or other remote locations. The subsequent demand for digital services overwhelmed the resources in place. Cities, counties and other municipal governments face a unique challenge in shifting to digital services because of the wide array of services they provide. Those services range from taking complaints about potholes and providing social services to managing water and power and delivering real-time response involving police, fire and other emergencies. In some cases, cities are looking to put the entire range of services into a single portal. State and federal agencies may have a narrower focus when it comes to citizen services, but they too are focused on customer satisfaction. The federal Office of Management and Budget made it a priority a couple of years ago for high-impact service providers (HISPs), which include all or parts of 11 departments. In every case, agencies have to deliver the kind of quick, seamless customer experience people have gotten used to from businesses, while also giving employees the support they need. To learn more about how agencies can improve constituent satisfaction with their digital services, GovLoop partnered with Verint, a company that helps build enduring customer relationships by connecting work, data and experiences across the enterprise. This report will detail the unique challenges government agencies face with constituent services, and how they can improve satisfaction among both constituents and their own employees.
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By The Numbers Digital services placed second in NASCIO’s 2021 survey of state CIOs’ priorities, behind only cybersecurity and risk management. Source: NASCIO, State CIO Top Ten Policy and Technology Priorities for 2021 - NASCIO
51%
of citizens would increase use of government digital services if offered a single portal to access multiple services. Source: Accenture, Citizen Survey | Accenture
Average citizen satisfaction with desktop websites is down modestly (-0.3), from 76.1 during the first half of 2020 to 75.8 during the second half of 2020. Source: Verint E-gov Index
-4.4%
The drop in customer satisfaction with U.S. federal government services during 2020, to a five-year low of 65.1%. Source: ACSI Federal Government Report
2020 American Customer Satisfaction Index (theacsi.org)
18%
of citizens were accessing more digital government services in August 2020 than before the pandemic, although … citizen satisfaction with digital government services declined by 13% between March and August 2020. Source: Xerox and the Center for Digital Government, Digital Citizen Services - Xerox
61%
of citizens preferred to access government services digitally by August 2020, compared with 16% who still preferred in-person visits. Source: Xerox and the Center for Digital Government, Digital Citizen Services - Xerox
“How people interact with local governments will continue to change substantially, and our job is to think about what we need to do to support that evolution.” – Sean Greer, IT Director of Service Delivery, City and County of Denver
CAN THE PUBLIC SECTOR MEET THE GROWING DEMAND AND NEED FOR DIGITAL SERVICES?
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Meeting the Needs of a Digital Citizenry The Challenge: Systems Have One Foot in the Past Many public sector agencies were making progress with the digital transformation of their services when the pandemic hit. They weren’t, however, ready to handle the number of employees needing to work remotely or the large number of constituents looking for their services online. Many agencies have infrastructure and siloed data stores that struggle to meet the requirements of modern digital services. Together, this has led to issues such as surges in demand for unemployment benefits that overloaded systems and shut them down. Such issues may be behind the drop in satisfaction with government digital services in the early days of the pandemic.
Providing consistent service. When agencies try to deliver real-time services digitally with existing processes, constituents often suffer long wait times and clunky services. If digital services and processes are not coordinated across different channels – such as between customer service representatives and chatbots – constituents can also end up receiving conflicting information.
Achieving a digital transformation of these services must start with addressing the key challenges agencies face. Constituent expectations. Increasingly, agencies serve a smartphone-savvy public that has come to expect seamless online interactions, whether dealing with a retailer, bank or government agency. The increasing prevalence of online shopping and social media is undoubtedly driving the rapidly increasing preference for consuming public services digitally. But there is also an imperative to serve those who don’t fit in the digital world. “Those in the biggest need tend to be those with the greatest challenges,” said Scott Montgomery, Vice President Public Sector - SLED for Verint. “Access to mobile devices, a laptop and the internet may be difficult or impossible. So agencies must deal with both sides of the coin.” The wide range of services. Agencies need to look at their digital services from the citizen’s point of view. The wide range of services provided by government at all levels can be confusing and make it difficult for many people to find the service they need. This is reinforced by the Accenture Citizen Survey that revealed a clear preference for single portal access to multiple services. Such a portal should be designed to be a “one-stop shop” – whether constituents want to report a pothole, a problem in the park or are unsure whether to call 211, 311 or 911. The challenge is in getting actionable information from across silos without expensive customization.
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The Solution: A Digital First Engagement Platform Agencies of all types and sizes would benefit from deploying a citizen engagement platform that offers comprehensive capabilities for improving the citizen experience while also giving employees the tools they need to improve service. Here are three key components: A self-service portal. A lot of constituent requests or reports are fairly simple and could be easily handled using well-configured self-service transactions in a portal. This would provide faster service that would boost constituent satisfaction and take pressure off agent-assisted channels. Among its features:
Fraud prevention. Government services frequently involve collecting personal information and paying monetary benefits to citizens. This can make them a target for fraudsters and other criminals, just as in the commercial world. Effective, flexible and adaptive monitoring for a range of suspicious and fraudulent behaviors, coupled with alerts and preventative measures, can help ensure that the right services get to the right people.
• Anytime/anywhere access for information and service requests, applications and other personalized services • An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) chatbot that can provide contextual responses to questions and transition interactions easily to live assistance from an agent when required • Options for seamless, end-to-end integration and fulfillment of service requests • An open forum where constituents can interact with the agency and one another in a community setting, sharing ideas and offering feedback Employee engagement. An essential element of improving service is providing the best tools to support the employees delivering those services. A good citizen engagement platform provides: • Self-service channels that function well enough to ease the burden on live assistance • Knowledge management capabilities that provide employees with access to information about services, policies and procedures that is consistent with what constituents get from self-service channels • Comprehensive case management and guided processes that support employees, work seamlessly with selfservice and chatbot systems and integrate with backoffice systems • Workforce management tools that allow employees and managers to manage schedules and resourcing
CAN THE PUBLIC SECTOR MEET THE GROWING DEMAND AND NEED FOR DIGITAL SERVICES?
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Best Practices in Constituent Engagement 1. Workforce Engagement A platform intended to better meet constituents’ needs must also address employees’ needs. A number of studies in the private sector have shown that employee engagement directly correlates to customer satisfaction, and this is equally applicable to the public sector. Workforce management tools can utilize information about employees’ skillsets to make sure that the right agents are available to handle the right calls at the right time. It is increasingly important to also provide employees with the flexibility to manage their own schedules. In a post-pandemic world, this needs to cover both in-office and remote work, as well as handling shift swaps with other employees. Quality management, text and speech analytics capabilities will facilitate the review of interaction recordings and transcripts, provide feedback and automatically schedule training and coaching where needed to help improve service.
2. Process Automation and Compliance Monitoring Robotic process automation (RPA) and integration between systems can remove the need for manual process steps by automating elements of many transactions, or even eliminating repetitive and routine tasks altogether. Employees can then focus on service requests that actually require their expertise and involvement. Automating service requests and other procedures helps ensure they are processed reliably and consistently and – importantly for government agencies – helps maintain compliance with local policies and government requirements.
3. Adaptive Identity Verification Part of protecting against the attempts at fraud that are common with public services is being able to identify legitimate callers without the identification process becoming a burden. A voice identity verification system uses biometrics to accurately screen calls while dynamically comparing voiceprints against a database of known fraudsters. The system can passively enroll constituents, then confirm their identities in subsequent calls in real time without needing to run through a series of verification questions, which would slow down each call.
4. Cloud Compatibility As part of their digital transformations, governments are increasingly looking at moving their business applications and data stores to the cloud. Investments in existing, onpremises solutions mean that a variety of deployment models are likely to exist for a while yet. Look for solutions that are flexible enough to sit in a hybrid environment, rather than being linked to a single type of deployment.
5. Incorporating AI Artificial intelligence is finding its way into very many business applications, in very many ways. It can help with anything from identity verification to building optimal workforce schedules to helping derive operational insights and drive corrective action from collected data.
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How Verint Helps
Verint’s cutting-edge focus on customer engagement and its extensive experience in both the public and private sectors position it well for government agencies looking to improve constituent experiences. The company brings a comprehensive approach to the table, with capabilities to support both self- and assisted-service, workforce management, knowledge management, process guidance and assistance, community forums, process automation and fraud prevention. Its automated tools employ knowledge and case management expertise to provide a seamless, real-time experience for constituents, ease the burden on employees and accommodate access by multiple devices. The company also provides a full range of employee engagement and workforce management tools, recognizing that improving the work environment for employees is a key to improving service for constituents. Verint can help agencies move forward in their digital transformations while improving both employee engagement and constituent satisfaction with services. Click here to learn more.
Conclusion Government agencies face a multifaceted challenge in trying to improve constituent services and respond to increasing preferences for digital interactions while also dealing with legacy systems and processes. Solving the puzzle involves addressing the needs of both constituents and employees with a combination of constituent engagement and workforce management tools designed for the digital era. An automated platform that engages employees, implements seamless digital processes for constituent interactions and covers essential issues such as security and compliance can help agencies bridge the digital divide, moving forward on their own digital transformations while costeffectively meeting their top priority of improving service.
CAN THE PUBLIC SECTOR MEET THE GROWING DEMAND AND NEED FOR DIGITAL SERVICES?
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A B O U T V E RI N T
ABOUT GOVLOOP
Verint® helps the world’s most iconic brands build enduring customer relationships by connecting work, data and experiences across the enterprise. With this approach, brands can adapt to the future of work, eliminate the inefficiencies created by organizational and data silos, and consistently deliver differentiated experiences at scale across every interaction. With Verint, brands can close the gap created when an organization lacks the resources required to deliver the desired customer engagement. Closing this Engagement Capacity Gap™ enables them to build enduring relationships with customers and drive real business results. Learn more: https://www.verint.com/
GovLoop’s mission is to “connect government to improve government.” We aim to inspire public-sector professionals by serving as the knowledge network for government. GovLoop connects more than 300,000 members, fostering cross-government collaboration, solving common problems and advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a team of dedicated professionals who share a commitment to connect and improve government.
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For more information about this report, please reach out to info@govloop.com.