IT Professionals Play an Important Role in Moving the Needle on Citizen Experience

Government IT professionals are often confronted with an almost impossible task. Keep up with the latest trends in technology. Maintain old legacy systems that often don’t communicate with new software. And deliver the latest and greatest in technology on a shoestring budget. The latter is perhaps the greatest struggle for government agencies, where budgets are notoriously tight and the red tape particularly thick! But there’s more. Given the sensitive nature of citizen data, IT professionals must be extremely diligent when it comes to security. When you consider the complexities of the tasks above, it’s no wonder many can’t find the time to develop innovative solutions that improve customer experience (CX).

The result is many government agencies are still struggling with below average experiences and their poor CX performance is curbing their ability to meet their goals and the needs of their citizens. All is not lost. There are some actions that you, as an IT professional, can take to make a positive impact on the citizen journey. The time to upgrade your CX is now. Here’s how.

Prioritize Citizens When Partnering with Customer Experience Solutions Vendors

Understandably, it’s difficult for government agencies to make the switch to digital services, but it is essential in order to increase citizen engagement and satisfaction as well as maintain the reputation of the agency. Your role in ensuring effective, secure solutions are chosen and rolled out smoothly is critical. One of your key priorities should be finding technology that makes it easy and convenient for your citizens to pay. This is one of the only customer experience touchpoints citizens have with their local governments, so improving this process will go a long way in improving their experience with your agency. The right billing and payment provider will be able to help you deliver innovative payment solutions like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Venmo. You will also want to choose software solutions that give your citizens choice across platforms, making sure to include the ability to self-serve using kiosks, web, chatbot, SMS, and mobile apps. Innovative technology like AI-powered chatbots give your citizens ready access to information at any time of the day or night, answering questions without the need for human intervention.

Find Solutions That Integrate With Your Current Technology

A common challenge for many government agencies is finding solutions that not only integrate with current systems but also have the scalability to meet the demands of users. When old and new don’t work together, the ability to deliver a seamless customer experience becomes impossible. Incomplete and fragmented data results in an inconsistent and inefficient delivery of services which inevitably leads to frustrated citizens and less trust in the agency overall. To overcome this, you should be looking for vendors that can demonstrate that their solutions can integrate with your existing technology, so you’re able to maximize the benefit of any new platforms you’re rolling out without reducing the effectiveness of current systems in place.

Partner With Vendors That Put Security First

As an IT professional in a government agency, you’re probably up a lot at night worrying about keeping data secure. That makes sense, you must adhere to the highest standards of security and privacy. It’s this commitment to keeping data safe that has made it difficult to increase digital citizen engagement in the past and caused the public sector to fall behind with emerging technologies.¹ The security protocols and encryption tools available today have changed all that. You now have the ability to implement a secure and compliant CX platform that improves citizen interactions while keeping confidential data safe. You can further increase your chances of success by partnering with PCI Level 1 compliant vendors who use tokenization to encrypt data throughout the payment process.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Data

When it comes to frictionless CX, data is king. You probably already know that and are struggling with turning raw citizen data into meaningful insights. Without the right tools, that allow data to be captured, analyzed, and easily shared across the organization, you’ve lost the power of data. It’s time to start building scalable and flexible CX customer data platforms, removing data silos, and helping support the customer journey.²  Rest easy, this doesn’t mean you have to dismantle everything and rebuild from scratch. The right billing and payment solution works seamlessly with your current systems, provides detailed analytics and creates an omni-channel customer experience without overhauling your systems.

Don’t Go It Alone, It’s Lonely

Advance your CX initiatives by partnering with a customer experience expert. KUBRA offers solutions, like KUBRA EZ-PAY and KUBRA iDoxs Suite, that complement your back-end systems and manage citizen billing and payments. We can also help you deliver innovative technology solutions that meet your security and compliance requirements, while improving customer satisfaction.

1. Get Ready for Customer Experience Technology, Government Technology, 2019.
2. How the right CX Operating Model can pave the way to future success, Deloitte Digital, 2019.