While advancement in digital technology demands governments around the world to adopt new approaches to improve service delivery, prioritising experience remains crucial in meeting expectations of citizen customers.
According to a 2018 survey of over 20,000 citizens across 140 government services in seven countries by global management consulting firm McKinsey and Co., investing in customer-experience programmes enables government agencies and departments to drive more positive outcomes to priorities that matter to them.
“Every agency can transform the customer experience, given a clarity of focus and the courage to act,” state McKinsey on its 2018 customer-experience benchmarking survey
One of these priorities is achieving the organisation’s stated mission, in which the survey shows that customers who are satisfied with an agency or a department’s service are nine times more likely to agree with its ability to deliver on its mission.
Another is meeting or exceeding budgetary goals of public sector organisations, whereby dissatisfied citizens are twice as likely to call agency hotlines three or more times for assistance.
In this case, organisations can create a more seamless experience, provide the correct information and set expectations better when considering complaints by citizen customers, thus managing their operational budget more effectively.
These complaints can also help government agencies and departments to mitigate risks by reducing the number of unhappy customers. Here, results from the McKinsey survey suggests that dissatisfied customers are twice as likely to express their discontent in public via social media, letters, hotlines or calls to local politicians.
Within the organisation, establishing a customer-centric culture can boost morale among civil servants by reinforcing their engagement and the organisation’s ability to function effectively, adapt to change appropriately and grow from within, thus driving long-term organisational success.
Most importantly, prioritising the customer experience enables public sector organisations to strengthen public trust; the McKinsey survey notes that citizen customers are nine times more likely to trust a government agency or department if they are satisfied with the service provided.
“Across industries, companies are betting big on customer experience. It’s time for government to do the same.
“Deliberate, focused investments in improving the customer experience can help public-sector leaders achieve better results across the full spectrum of critical outcomes they are charged with delivering,” reiterate McKinsey.
Read more about the survey here: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/the-global-case-for-customer-experience-in-government
