Employing Customer Experience Principles in Government Services

On December 13, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order that may have passed under many US residents’ radar—despite its far reaching goal of changing their relationship with government. The “Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government” directs 17 federal agencies to implement an array of customer experience (CX) improvements. The framework intends to save residents time and “deliver the level of service that the public expects and deserves.” In an age of low public trust in government, the president did not undersell the order’s potential impact

Treating constituents as customers is not a new idea at any level of government—it’s simply hard. The public sector simply does not have the same incentives as the private sector. This Executive Order shows that we have come a long way towards creating a more human-centered government, but there are still obstacles as we continue to learn from the past and to create government services that meet the needs of the people.

The pandemic drastically changed the degree of public need as well as the channels through which residents communicate with and access services from government agencies. It is now more critical than ever for local, state, and federal governments to properly leverage the CX tools and techniques traditionally used in the private sector to deepen the level of insight and connection government organizations have with the public.

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