Because customer experience (CX) is not only a priority in the vision of President Biden’s Presidential Management Agenda but also the subject of its own executive order, Federal agency and industry officials said the focus is on design and Human -centered personnel are important when using technology to produce. citizen services that are more consistent and accessible.
Officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) – along with those from ServiceNow and NetImpact – shared their insights on improving and accelerating service delivery at the ServiceNow Federal Forum 2022 on March 10.
“One of the things we wanted to do early was bring in in-house designers and human-centered design specialists when we first set up this office in 2015, 2016,” Barbara Morton, deputy chief veterans experience officer for the VA’s Veterans Experience Office (VEO), said at the event. “And nothing [available employees] classified for that talent, ”she added.
“Fast forward to where we are today, and … we actually have our first Chief Design Officer in our shop, and a whole team of Federal employees who are CX strategists and design specialists,” Morton said.
He said those hires have been key to unlocking insights and better understanding of the customers the VA serves. Using insights gained from how veterans use services, Morton and VEO will learn not only how veterans currently engage with services, but also identify pitfalls and shortcomings of current systems in place.
Morton said a focus on human-centered design was used to update CX for veteran patients and to streamline the process on an end-to-end basis of receiving health care from the VA. Additionally, the agency uses data and insights to facilitate navigation to medical centers-a “low-tech” arrangement as it calls it-and streamline the features of the VA website. .
To find out the best way to streamline VA web properties, the agency sent a survey to veterans and came back with findings that VA.gov is the most accessible front door for veterans. But Morton didn’t stop there – he also initiated a redesign of the website, partnered with VA’s chief technology officer, and said a new mobile app is on soft launch this year.
“So, we are really seeping this [human-centered design] The methodology is deep, deep in the organization and the results speak for themselves, ”Morton said.“ After we relaunched VA.gov… the veteran satisfaction with using the website increased by more than 20 percent. ”
At USCIS, Chief Technology Officer Robert Brown said asking how to get to the enhanced CX and using a people -centered design framework is the first question for his office when looking to improve service. And he said finding the right staff was a big facilitator of that mission.
“How to get to human -centered design is]first and foremost,” Brown said. “Some of the things we’ve done that strengthens this … is to actually start hiring the right people and make sure we have good, classified position descriptions so we can get bodies with that kind of talent in government.”
Thereafter, it took USCIS two years to research and implement a new design system that uses the available data. Brown said his office is working on establishing a community of excellence as well as a CX research base that he hopes will be available to the entire USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) parent agency.
“[We’re] also begins to build a good research base that the entire organization, as well as others within DHS or even within the Federal community, can reuse based on the similar types of experiences we have presented and already in our customer base, ”Brown said.
Venkatatapathi Puvvada, chief executive officer of NetImpact, said the current lack of delivery of citizen services is a failure in the widespread utilization of employee capabilities within an agency. He said the platform Brown is talking about has a chance to break that capability gap.
“Part of what we’re not using is the power of a wider audience that has mission experience within the agency and makes the technology work for them,” Puvvada said. “Obviously, we need to have skill sets, technical skill sets, like cloud [and] cyber, and so on. Yes [Brown] He describes he has set up an integrated platform where people can innovate on top to speed up delivery. ”
“It takes the business analyst and mission analyst to understand the context of what we need to do to enable service delivery, acceleration, and coaching to them,” Puvvada added. “It’s a no code environment on top of this integrated platform, and I think that’s a huge skill set.”
Jonathan Alboum, Federal Chief Technology Officer for ServiceNow and moderator of the panel discussion, emphasized the empathy and care seen from Morton and Brown and added the importance of seeing someone interact with a service or product to improve their experience here.
“Connecting people who understand the mission with people who understand the technology, and ideally helping people who understand the mission learn the technologies, and people who know the technology to learn the mission,” are key to the process, said Alboum. “Now you have an amazing intersection of people who can do tremendous things,” he said.