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Government Citizen Service Delivery Hits a New High — Transformation Options for 2011 PERSPECTIVE
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Ad e la i de O'B r i en
IN THIS PERSPECTIVE This IDC Government Insights Perspective discusses government's new efforts to achieve its goals regarding service delivery to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies. Today, more than ever, citizens are looking for their government leaders to keep them informed and support their needs. And citizens increasingly expect to interact with government on their terms, 24 x 7, and not only receive information but also conduct their government business through selfservice when possible. As a result, we're seeing something new in Washington, an increased emphasis on figuring out how to better interact with and provide service to citizens. Beyond eGovernment
eGovernment made great strides in providing information, but it failed to deliver on the most critical promise: using information to improve service delivery for constituents. The recent federal emphasis on transparent and connected democracy, where government is using social networking such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to open government to citizens, is fueling citizen expectations for consistent, real-time automated self-service. Programs such as those funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) have complex and changing rules regarding program eligibility, duration, and extensions — dynamic information that must be easily understood by government and citizens alike. As citizens look to government to keep them informed and support their needs, government is making it easier for citizens to create and track claims, search for and share information, understand eligibility requirements, apply for grants/loans, and receive services. Government's New Approach to Citizen Service
As government launches new efforts to achieve its goals regarding service delivery to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies, government entities are: January 2010, Government Insights #GI221688 Government Insights: United States Government Strategic Technology Program: Perspective
● Uncovering the factors that influence both positive and negative citizen services ● Beginning to consolidate citizen information for 360-degree views ● Instituting service delivery process performance management ● Adopting new media solutions for 24 x 7 and collaborative support Government's New Thinking
Government is bringing new thinking to citizen service, increasingly understanding the constituent demographics and providing multichannel approaches to services through technology innovation. One example is the Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Information Center. This center, which receives more than 16 million submissions for federal student aid each year, redesigned the application process so that nearly 99% of applications were processed through the Web to appeal to its high school and college age customers. Prior years' submissions are retained, and applicants can reuse these pre-populated applications to save time and reduce errors for subsequent submissions. Internet correspondence and Web chat are also available. On the other end of the spectrum is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS managers estimate that over 50% of the 45 million Medicare beneficiaries are Web enabled and computer savvy enough to use the Medicare Web site. CMS is also preparing for the demographic changes that will occur as baby boomers age and retire. CMS research shows that baby boomers are much more willing to use Web-based tools than their parents, and that by 2030, when all baby boomers are eligible to retire, they will use the Internet to address their needs. CMS is focusing on providing self-service to these upand-coming beneficiaries. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) recognizes government entities that excel in citizen service through an annual Citizen Service Award. Through this award, government entities are recognized for excelling in citizen service through Web, telephone, or email and combinations of all channels. GSA opens this competition to all federal, state, and local government agencies. A panel of government judges selects the three agencies that exhibit leadership and innovative improvements in: ● Citizen engagement ● Information accuracy ● Citizen satisfaction
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● Quality staff retention ● Performance management ● Program accomplishments and improvements The three agencies that received the 2009 GSA Citizen Services Award include: ● The Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC National Contact Center, 1-800-CDC-INFO, supports CDC's mission by delivering to the general public, healthcare providers, and public health partners disease prevention and health and safety information that is timely, consistent, and science based. The CDC consolidated 40 different toll-free numbers into 1 number and consolidated publication distribution from five warehouses to a single distribution center, moves that saved taxpayers $6 million and strengthened reporting capabilities by ensuring data consistency and standard, agencywide, and programmatic reporting. Data gathered from client interviews shows that 23% of the respondents' self-reported health behavior changed based on information provided by CDC-INFO. The CDC cross-promotes programs and services, the toll-free CDC-INFO number is positioned on CDC's mobile Web site and the agency's MySpace page as well as podcasts and videos, and both CDC-INFO and CDC.gov are co-branded on CDC's Web 2.0 products and tools. ● The Social Security Administration (SSA). The SSA delivers services and provides information and assistance to over 38 million callers to its 800 number and over 44 million visitors at 1,400 regional and field offices. The SSA estimates that millions more obtain information and conduct transactions through automated telephone and Internet channels. Anticipating the retirement of approximately 80 million tech-savvy baby boomers, the SSA released an improved Internet Benefit Claim (iClaim) in December 2008. Online claims completion time was cut in half, now taking only 15 minutes, and online usage has risen to 25%. To get the word out about the improved online claims application, the SSA hosted a national Webinar attended by more than 1,000 financial planners, human resource managers, and constituents and posted videos of its celebrity spokesperson, Patty Duke, on its YouTube channel. The SSA developed a rich media campaign of an animated Duke in online ads using PointRoll technology that appeared on MSN, CNNMoney.com, Kiplinger.com, AARP.org, Yahoo! Network, MotleyFool.com, AOL, and interCLICK (Spanish). The SSA also uses search marketing keyword ads on Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. ● The Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBA, in a partnership with 21 other federal agencies, manages Business.gov, ©2010 Government Insights, an IDC Company
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the official business link to U.S. government information for small businesses. Originally launched in 2004, as a result of user feedback, American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) surveys, customer service inquiries, Web analytics, focus groups, and usability testing, Business.gov has implemented several improvements, including: ○ Implementing Google Custom Search technology in 2008 to improve user experience in finding relevant information aligned with a user's geographic area to give small business owners greater access to state and local information and regulatory requirements (Business.gov expanded the scope of content, providing access to over 9,000 state, territory, county, and city government sites. This change resulted in improvements in search satisfaction scores and customer satisfaction scores — search satisfaction scores rose from 69% in FY07 to 74% in FY08, and overall satisfaction scores rose f r o m 7 0 % i n F Y 0 7 t o 7 2 % i n F Y 0 8 . I n a d d i tion to improvement in satisfaction scores, the Business.gov site saw a dramatic jump in site traffic, a 67% increase in monthly traffic from January 2008 to January 2009. The SBA estimates that Business.gov users saved nearly 4 million hours in FY08 versus FY07 and over 227,000 hours in January 2009, largely as a result of these improvements.) ○ Adopting a clear, uniform navigation, with information organized by stages (i.e., start, expand, and operate), which simplified the home page by reducing information and highlighting the most important topics ○ Launching an online community in 2009 to provide small businesses, experts, and government a place to share collective information about starting and running a business Each of these examples shows commitment to providing exemplary service and information to citizens. However, with the paramount objective of delivering more effective citizen services, the transformation of government services will need systems and processes that are connected, not siloed, as a large amount of government data and applications is today. Integrating data, processes, and systems to serve citizens holistically won't progress rapidly in this economy — today, government agencies are being pushed to their limits with assistance claims, including unemployment insurance payments, school lunch and food stamps, and health and disability claims. The availability of ARRA funding for technology upgrades can assist overburdened agencies in updating paper-based systems and providing online access to complex rules and program eligibility requirements.
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The key breakthrough for citizen services and engagement will be the implementation of enterprise content management, record management, and process management infrastructure, integrated by collaborative content management tools and policies and available 24 x 7 through multiple channels. While government is on a path to achieve this breakthrough, a full 360-degree view of citizens will achieved well beyond 2010. Advice to Government
Citizen services and case management can be streamlined through collaboration, accurate resource planning, performance monitoring, compliance auditing, and visibility to all stakeholders. Visibility will, in fact, pervade all components of citizen services as citizens monitor the transparency of processes and keep public sector employees accountable for the outcomes. With the paramount objective of delivering more effective citizen services, the government services transformation will need systems and processes that are connected, not siloed. When investing in technologies to enhance citizen services, government should consider the following: ● Collaborative interfaces provide workspaces to foster information exchange among government officials in charge of researching, assessing, evaluating, and approving cases. Enterprise search capabilities will greatly strengthen the ability to find data across government departments and from external sources. Dashboards can ensure that case managers have continuous visibility into the status of each case and can audit in compliance with policy and regulatory guidelines, and by improving visibility into duplicative and suspicious benefit alerts to employees for follow-up activities, fraud may be reduced. Portals and email tools will greatly enhance accessibility, transparency, and accountability toward end users. ● Business process management (BPM) streamlines workflows by automatically scheduling tasks that are to be assigned to employees who participate in the delivery of a service within an agency and across agencies. Task assignment will entail time required for each operation and provide rules to follow for maximum efficiency and compliance with regulation, forms, templates to be used, and queue management. When changes in the process occur, BPM can enable real-time document workflow adaptation, content that needs to be searched to complete the operation, and various employee levels of responsibility (thus authorization to access information). ● Content management functionalities provide for data to be retrieved, added to the workflow, and examined in multiple formats from multiple sources for comprehensive decision support while maintaining control of versions, authors, and access. Advanced search functionalities can be particularly important for
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rapid response by ensuring content retrieval across sources (e.g., by launching federated searches across multiple government departments and external sources) and formats. By managing rights and permissions to create, edit, post, or delete materials and protecting intellectual property content management technologies, governments ensure compliance with privacy, transparency, and other regulations. ● Record management replaces paper-based records with electronic logging, indexing, classifying, meta-tagging, transferring, retrieval, and storage of information. Government employees who handle virtual case files will be able to access consistent and up-to-date information according to their levels of authorization. Retention policies can also be automated to ensure that the timing and types of storage support are compliant with regulations. ● Business rules management systems define, manage, and execute conditional logic in concert with other IT processes and actions and are known for the ability to automatically recognize the interrule relationships that evolve as rules are added or changed, eliminating the need for complex rule sequencing/conflict resolution that would otherwise be necessary. Business rules management systems can leverage subject matter experts to share knowledge repository; provide non-IT personnel the ability to translate policy and legislation into eligibility requirements, speeding time from policy changes to active rules; and allow for consistent application of policy and legislative rules, reducing errors and appeals. LEARN MORE Related Research
● U.S. Government 2010 Top 10 Predictions (Government Insights #GI221484, January 2010) ● Best Practices: A ProveIT Case Study — Comprehensive CRM Solution Improves Beneficiary Services at Medicare Services (Government Insights #GI221384, December 2009) ● New U.S. Federal Government IT Leadership: The Three IT Tenors Set the Tone at the Top (Government Insights #GI219852, September 2009)
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