Customer Experience Toolkit

Customer Experience (CX) is defined as the sum of all experiences a customer has with your organization. Since government is often a sole-source service provider (e.g., there’s only one place to pay taxes, or get a driver’s license), CX is even more important in the public sector than in other organizations. If that’s not enough to convince you, view this webinar on why federal agencies must improve CX.

This Toolkit is intended to help government agencies improve how we deliver services and information to the public.

How to use this guide:

• Honestly assess where you’re doing well, and where you need some work, then use the resources below to help you improve
• Coordinate internally, to ensure your agency “speaks with one voice” across the entire organization
• Start small and iterate—focus on changes that will have a positive impact on the largest customer groups first

Topics covered in this toolkit include: Strategy, Governance, Culture, Customer Understanding, Design, Measurement, Digital Services, and Collaboration.

Strategy

Make the customer experience a strategic priority for your entire organization.

Get the big picture

• Customer Service Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goal Update
• The Customer Service Playbook for Government – GovLoop
• Serving Citizens: Strategies for Customer-Centered Government in the Digital Age – Partnership for Public Service
• Re-Imagining Customer Service in Government – GovLoop
• The Essentials of Customer Experience: Going Beyond Customer Service – video featuring Forrester and Dept. of Education

Develop a strategy

• Identify what matters most to customers
  • What Really Matters: Focusing on Top Tasks – A List Apart
  • Task Analysis – Usability.gov
• Document what the ideal customer experience looks like
  • CX: The Art of the Possible (PDF) – InMoment/CustomerThink

Share high-level priorities and goals

• Publicly share goals and priorities to increase accountability
  • Agency Strategic Goals – Performance.gov
  • See agency Customer Service Plans on their Open Government pages
• See what other agencies are doing
  • Strategic Plan FY2014-2018 and Mission, Goals and Priorities – Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
  • Vision 2025 – Social Security Administration (SSA)
  • myUSCIS Overview (Word, 69 kb) – United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Governance

Designate a single person to be responsible for the customer experience agency-wide; give them appropriate resources and authority to approve and monitor CX efforts and influence change across the entire organization.

Hire a Chief Customer Officer (CCO)

• Focus on collaboration and teamwork
  • Sample Chief Customer Officer position description (Word, 23 kb) – General Services Administration (GSA)
  • Sample CCO performance evaluation criteria (PDF, 82 kb) – GSA
• Empower the CCO to influence change across the entire organization
  • Federal Student Aid Customer Experience Journey: A Recap

Stand up a Customer Team

• Performance Plans
  • Sample CX Consultant performance plan (Excel, 80 kb) – GSA
• Position Descriptions (PDs)
  • Sample PDs for Digital Government jobs – incl. usability, design, analytics
• Agency examples
  • Customer Service and Public Engagement Directorate (CSPED) overview (PowerPoint, 2MB) and Functional Profile (Word, 85 kb) – DHS/USCIS

Coordinate delivery of content and services

• Institute central oversight for cross-channel customer support
• Train all front-line employees across the entire organization on service level expectations and frequently asked questions (FAQs)
  • Share contact center FAQs with all front-line staff
  • Develop scripts for people who answer the phones
  • Document boilerplate email responses to FAQs
• Identify content owners and establish editorial controls over content publication across the entire organization
• 7 Inspiring Examples of Omni-Channel User Experiences – HubSpot

Follow all relevant laws and policies

• Government Customer Service Policies & Requirementsgovernment-customer-service-policies-requirements-1993-to-present/)

Culture

Publish customer service standards and train all employees so they understand their role, responsibilities, expectations and behavioral norms in the customer experience ecosystem.

Train your employees

• Ensure all employees understand the importance of good customer service
  • CX Video Training Library – DigitalGov University
  • Customer Service (Intro) 30-min online training course – Small Business Administration (SBA)
  • Developing Customer-Focused Organizations – 5-day training course – OPM
  • DOI University – Department of the Interior (DOI)
• Provide additional customer service training to front-line staff
  • Share FAQs and boilerplate language, to ensure customers receive the same correct answer from everyone across the organization

Build a customer-centric culture

• Learn how to Create a Culture of Engagement – video
• Improve the onboarding process for new employees
  • Develop a “New Employees” section on your intranet to help new hires easily find critical information
• Share customer service expectations and stories on your intranet
  • Sample intranet content (PowerPoint, 688 kb) – DHS/USCIS
• Encourage employees to join the CX Community of Practice
• Celebrate Customer Service Week
• Learn from the private sector
  • How the Nationals’ Customer Experience Principles Can Be a Home Run for Agencies

Hold employees accountable

• Include customer service in performance rating criteria
  • Sample performance rating elements (Excel, 23 kb) – GSA

Respond to employee concerns

• Regularly ask for, listen to, and take action on feedback
  • Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (EVS)

Reward success

• Acknowledge employees who provide great service
  • Doesn’t have to be monetary—a simple “thank you” can go a long way

Customer Understanding

Systematically collect and analyze customer behavior and feedback to understand needs and expectations.

Clearly identify who you’re serving

• Guide to Understanding Your Customer (PDF, 10 MB)
• Getting to Know Your Users: Tips and Tricks from Veterans Affairs
• Spend time in your customers’ shoes
  • Be a “secret shopper” and interact with your agency from the outside in

Bring customers to life with personas

• Personas 101
• Using Personas to Better Understand Customers: USA.gov Case Study
• Sample personas.
  • Veteran’s Affairs Personas (PDF)
  • USDA Personas and Use Cases (PDF, 567 kb)

Map the entire customer journey

• Journey Mapping the Customer Experience: A USA.gov Case Study
• The Customer Experience Journey Mapping Toolkit – Designing CX
• Make it easy to complete common tasks
  • List of Top Customer Tasks – Department of Education (ED)
  • Frequently Requested Forms – DHS
  • Popular Health Topics – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Analyze and act on data

• Institute processes to review customer feedback on a regular basis
  • Using Customer Feedback to Improve Healthcare.gov
• Review website and search data to identify the most-viewed/popular content
  • DAP/Google Analytics – web analytics
  • DigitalGov Search – website search data

Identify common questions

• Ask your contact center and front-line staff which questions they’re asked most often
• Document and share common questions
  • FAFSA Help – ED
  • Common Questions – Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
  • Frequently Asked Questions: Smoking & Tobacco Use – CDC

Design

Implement agile, iterative, customer-centric design processes for all customer interactions.

Follow design best practices

• U.S. Digital Services Playbook
• Draft U.S. Web Design Standards
• Method cards – 18F (GSA)
• Mobile User Experience Guidelines and Recommendations
• Connecting with the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team

Be agile

• How Agile Development Can Benefit Federal Projects
• Why People Contribute to Federal Tech Projects (And How You Can Provide a Good Experience)
• Agile Project Management in Government

Streamline contact center operations

• Contact Center Guidelines

Use plain language

• Federal Plain Language Guidelines
• Bilingual Glossaries, Dictionaries, and Style Guides
• Customer Experience Case Study: CDC’s Clear Communication Index – video

Conduct regular and ongoing user testing

• User Experience Basics
• User Research Methods
• Creating a User-Centered Approach in Government
• UX Training Video Library – DigitalGov University ([DGU] GSA)

Solicit ideas from customers

• Ideation Challenges

Measurement

Define a framework for collecting common customer metrics, measures and outcomes within and across channels; require every program to regularly measure customer satisfaction and act on customer feedback.

Determine service levels for top tasks

• Report of the Citizen Service Levels Interagency Committee (Word, 233 kb, 2005) – CSLIC

Standardize processes

• Follow policies and requirements
  • Digital Metrics Guidance and Best Practices
  • Paperwork Reduction Act Fast Track Processpaperwork-reduction-act-44-u-s-c-3501-et-seq/)
• Adopt survey best practices
  • Designing a Better Customer Survey – video
  • Navigating the Alphabet Soup of Survey Methodologies (PDF) – ClickTools
  • Sample CX Question Database (Excel, 87 kb)
  • Likert-Type Scale Response Anchors – recommended wording and rating scales for a variety of survey questions
• Sample surveys
  • BusinessUSA (Word, 29 kb) – Department of Commerce
  • Passports (Word 75 kb) – State Department
  • USAJOBS (Excel, 76 kb) – OPM

Use shared services

• Digital Analytics Program (DAP) – website analytics
• DigitalGov Search – hosted search service
• DOI Federal Consulting Group (FCG) – survey tools and analysis support

Engage your team

• Identify how each person/team contributes to the customer experience
• Train employees to use customer feedback
  • CX Data in Action Series: Case Study #1 – Department of Labor’s Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA)
  • Analytics Video Training Library – DGU

Publish your progress

• Develop reports and dashboards
  • Above and Beyond Metrics: Tell a Story with Reports – video
  • Code for America Analytics Dashboard
• Agency examples
  • Digital Metrics Dashboard – CDC
  • Annual Performance Report—Fiscal Years 2014–2016 – DHS

Digital Services

Develop a Digital Business Strategy that embraces an improved customer experience, and empower and fund your digital services team to modernize agency websites and online systems to take advantage of new technologies.

Deliver anytime, anywhere, any channel government

• Improve digital interactions
  • Digital Government Strategy – Whitehouse.gov
  • U.S. Digital Service teams
• Publish open, structured content
  • Finding the Best Mobile Moment for Anytime, Anywhere Government
• Coordinate across all channels (web, social, mobile, etc.)
  • U.S. Digital Registry

Communicate clearly

• Plain Language and Writing for the Web – video

Adopt shared services

• Use shared services to streamline and save money

Collaboration

Collaborate internally, and with other agencies and stakeholders, to improve the overall government customer experience.

Work together

• Work with your CCO and others across your agency
• Join the CX-COP community
• Consider joining other communities of practice
• Coordinate service delivery where agency missions intersect
• Develop in the open

Tap the wisdom of the crowd

• Consider ideation competitions to find solutions

Share your story

• Good Communication is a CX Imperative – video
• Do you have a resource or case study to add to this Toolkit? If so, please contact us.