Hot CX Trends for the public sector: Digital first + personalization

Ah, January. It’s the month our thoughts turn to income tax preparation but also a time of hope, a fresh start.
 
There is good reason for optimism now because government agencies are trying to ease a tax burden consumers have long carried: the so-called “time tax” we pay with most public sector interactions, whether it’s renewing a passport, accessing unemployment benefits and disaster relief, or checking the status of a farm loan application.
 
At best, these tasks are circuitous and time-consuming. At their worst, frustrating and fruitless, thanks to outmoded technology and manual processes that have yet to be digitized. However, more government entities are prioritizing the customer experience—no doubt driven by President Biden’s executive order to improve CX—and a chief focus for the public sector is digital transformation and personalization.
 
That’s among the finding of TTEC’s new CX Trends for 2023 report. Some 70% of public and private organizations either have a digital transformation strategy in place today or are working on one.
 
Public sector organizations, however, face a challenge private companies don’t: denial. While most managers (70%) at government agencies think the CX they provide citizens is on par with the private sector, constituents think otherwise. When asked to rank CX at 10 public and private sector organizations, consumers ranked the federal government dead last, according to Deloitte research.
 
Digital-first is getting more real
Though there is much work to be done on digital transformation in the public sector, and budget constraints remain a challenge, agencies making the most progress in 2023 will be those whose leaders view CX not as a compliance task but as a fundamental shift that puts citizens at the center of government services, according to the GSA’s Office of Customer Experience.
 
To see how your organization benchmarks against peers, check out GSA’s CX Maturity Model, which identifies five tiers from the lowest “reactive” with outdated systems and one-way communications, to “tactical,” “strategic,” “foundational” and the most advanced, “customer centric,” where interwoven digital and nondigital processes and technologies deliver frictionless CX.
 
Digital-first initiatives such as migrating to cloud computing will continue to be a priority. It was the flexibility and scalability of cloud that enabled many organizations to maintain services even as the pandemic magnified demand and workers shifted to remote settings. More than 50% of organizations expect more than half of their staff to be a mix of on-site and work-from-home employees, according to the TTEC 2023 Trends Report.
 
Early success with cloud-based technology to support a remote workforce whets the appetite for greater advances with cloud-based CXaaS (Customer Experience as a Service) platforms like TTEC’s.
 
Personalization and the government? Why, yes
TTEC’s CX Trends for 2023 report highlights another opportunity particularly relevant to the public sector: personalization. Retail has prioritized it—think Amazon, Netflix, Starbucks—and financial services is moving forward with it more boldly than ever.
 
The public sector may be late to the personalization party but it doesn’t have to be a no-show.
 
Up to 15% revenue growth can be driven by personalization at scale and consumers want more of it, according to the CX Trends report. More than two-thirds (69%) of consumers welcome personalization so long as it’s based on data they have explicitly shared with an organization, according to the report.
 
It’s here where collaboration is vital. CX experts like TTEC can be invaluable partners in adopting personalization, thanks to digital contact center analytics and insights that inform personalization best practices suited to the unique needs of the public sector.
 
CX and EX experts can guide organizations how best to invest in training and digital technologies that empower contact center associates to deliver the experience citizens deserve. New tools are emerging all the time that make citizen interactions flow easier, with greater accuracy, compliance and—absolutely vital to the public sector—with transparency.
 
Check out TTEC’s full CX Trends for 2023 guide here.