What customer experience is really about
August 16, 2019
In government, we don’t put the citizen at the center because we want to focus on customer experience. We put the citizen at the center because a focus on each citizen’s needs helps drive better outcomes. Kevin Ellenwood explains the crucial link between experience and results. Learn more here.
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Customer experience has become important in the public sector because outcomes are continuing to be more and more important and a bigger focus for the public sector employees and agencies. Customer experience is a way to get to better outcomes. It’s a way to bring their citizens, their customers, their constituents along a journey towards a desired outcome and goal.
Know WHO they are. Meet them WHERE they are.
In order to achieve the best outcomes, we need to have an experience that meets the citizen where they are, over the channel that’s most accessible to them, at the time that’s right for them to get the service.
For example, you may have a family in need of welfare support, [and] that family may only have a primary access to the Internet that is over a mobile device. And they may only be available to work with an agency at night in the evening when they’re not working.
Right channel.
Right time.
Right place.
Effective customer experience – putting the customer in the center – is really driven by having the right channel at the right time, at the right place.
Digital is just part of the story
We often find ourselves getting questions from administrations, from the governor’s office, that says, “We want to become a digital government. We want to eliminate traditional transactions. We want to put everything online or make everything digital.”
And the reality is, that’s the wrong response. That’s reactionary.
Digital is a channel that has a lot of power, but so does a physical channel. So does a call center channel. You can’t give those up in order to become a digital-only government.
Ask the right questions
Better channel strategy.
Better integration.
Better experience.
Better outcomes.
What they need to be asking is, “How can we have a better channel strategy that incorporates digital, physical, call-center telephone technology, face-to-face caseworkers that are talking to people? And how do we bring all those together into a specific citizen experience that actually drives value and drives better outcomes?”
Learn more at accenture.com/PublicSector
