2022 Government Customer Experience (CX) Update: Where Federal Service Delivery is Headed

As we close out 2021 and look ahead to 2022, it feels like we’re still just surviving 2020. But there are some bright spots to consider, whether you are a federal employee, a government contractor, or just a citizen who uses the many services provided by the government. As I’ve written before, CX has continued to gain traction within the government in recent memory, and new policies issued before the end of the year continue to drive that progress forward.

There are many pieces of legislation and policy guidance that cover service delivery in government, but three of them stand out as especially important to driving the conversation in how government agencies and programs approach and comply with service design and reporting requirements moving forward:

1. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-11, Section 280, updated for Fiscal Years 2021-2022 (FY21-22)
2. The President’s Management Agenda, or PMA, updated in November to reflect priorities for the Biden Administration
3. Executive Order (EO) 14058, “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government,” signed in December by President Biden

OMB Circular A-11 Section 280: Customer Feedback and Reporting for Federal Programs

The A-11 has been around for a while now, but the Biden Administration recently made a few updates. The requirements for reporting for designated High-Impact Service Providers (HISPs) — those programs designated as extra important to ensuring citizens get the things they need from government — remain largely unchanged. However, the new guidance expanded the definition for CX to include equity in how people access and receive services, and it elevates CX’s role across not only HISPs but for all of government.

The guidance goes so far as to say, “Measures of experience…are of co-equal importance as traditional measures of financial and operational performance.” And it’s clear that every government program office should be thinking about CX, not just HISPs, stating, “All agencies should apply the guidance provided…for the design of feedback surveys and establishing experience measures for Federal services.” It seems that while HISPs still have specific reporting requirements up to OMB for Performance.gov dashboards, everyone should be gathering customer feedback and acting on it.

Continuing with that thread, the guidance says, “All Executive agencies have a responsibility to manage customer experience and improve service delivery using leading practices and a human-centered approach, under the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA).” Though IDEA is more about user experience (UX) with digital services, ensuring users have an accessible, consistent experience, it’s still an important part of the overall picture in complying with the A-11. That’s why now, more than ever, government websites and digital tools should incorporate voice of the customer (VoC) platforms (e.g., Medallia) to collect user feedback regularly, in addition to UX research and web analytics.

If you’re unfamiliar with what OMB requires of customer feedback surveys, here are the basics:

• Overall trust score of the entity (five-point Likert scale)
• Overall satisfaction score of the transaction or touchpoint (five-point Likert scale)
• Choices to assess relationships between the overall score and experience drivers relevant to the service (e.g., what contributed to your rating?)
• Question allowing but not requiring free response
• Question regarding purpose of the visit

Your VoC surveys should be as short as possible, but never more than 15 questions. On the web, it typically should be way shorter (think three to five).

PMA: CX Integration throughout Government Service Delivery

The PMA defines Government-wide management priorities for all Federal agencies to improve how Government operates and performs. The President’s Management Council, comprised of representatives from 24 agencies, advises the President and OMB on issues spanning federal agencies and is chaired by the OMB Deputy Director for Management.

The overall vision of Biden’s PMA is to create an “equitable, effective, and accountable government that delivers results for all.”

These are the three key priorities, and corresponding strategies to achieve them, laid out in the document:

Ensure the federal workforce is strong, empowered, and well-equipped to effectively deliver for the public

The administration seeks to make the U.S. government a model employer that drives high employee engagement by respecting workers’ rights and having strong hiring, retention, and development systems.

1. Strategy 1 – Attract and hire most qualified employees
2. Strategy 2 – Make every federal job a ‘good job’ where employees feel supported
3. Strategy 3 – Reimagine and build a roadmap to the future of federal work
4. Strategy 4 – Build the personnel system required to deliver on agency missions

While an admirable priority, I’m not sure the connection to CX that is laid out in the rest of the guidance is strong enough. To deliver on these four strategies, the government will need to apply the same principles of good CX to delivering good employee experiences (EX). It will also be interesting to see how government competes with the private sector for talent (especially for EX/CX roles) with its outdated General Schedule (GS) pay scale salary range limitations — the base 2021 salary for a midrange GS-15, the top grade, is $125,188, while a 2018 study by renowned CX expert Bruce Temkin (founder of the CX Professionals Association, or CXPA) found senior individual contributors were paid an average of $145,817 (leaders of large groups averaged $172,000). Rising inflation and a hypercompetitive job market are going to make it tough for the government to beef up its aging workforce.

The PMA also does not really describe what the future of federal work is expected to look like to build a roadmap to get there, but hopefully we’ll hear more about the intended goal and the future roadmap in the new year.

Improve the experience for all people, families, businesses, organizations, and communities that government serves

The PMA states a goal of enhancing everyday interactions with public services: “Every interaction between the Government and the public is an opportunity to deliver the value and competency Americans expect and deserve.”

1. Strategy 1 – Improve service design, digital products, and CX management of HISPs – cascading lessons learned to other Federal programs
2. Strategy 2 – Design, build and manage service delivery for key life experiences that cut across agencies (e.g., in the event of a disaster)
3. Strategy 3 – Identify and prioritize the development of federal shared products, services, and standards that enable simple, seamless, and secure experiences across HISPs (e.g., single login credentials, customer feedback platforms for online surveys)

This is where CX is heavily featured in the three big priorities within the PMA. There’s a lot to unpack here, considering every agency touches several life experiences for Americans that need to be properly researched, mapped, and action planned around to improve service delivery and how agencies measure and are held accountable for experiences.

Yet again, we see the administration saying that CX isn’t just for HISPs, but that those larger programs like Medicare and Medicaid, Patents and Trademarks, and others, should be “cascading” lessons learned down to other programs. However, I think this somewhat ignores the fact that some programs stand ready to build from the bottom up as well. There are offices with funding, contract vehicles, staff, contractor support, knowledge of CX, and a desire to improve experiences out there that are stifled by slow decision making and a lack of engagement from a Chief Experience Officer (CXO) and/or OMB at their level. The administration should continue to find ways to make grassroots CX easier for smaller government programs and line-level employees, such as those that serve professionals or grantees in their domain.

Manage the business of government

The business of government includes the operational and logistical factors it takes to run a country properly.

1. Strategy 1 – Foster lasting improvements to acquisition systems (how the government buys the products and services it needs to operate), strengthen domestic manufacturing, support workers, lead sustainable climate solutions, and create opportunities for underserved communities
2. Strategy 2 – Build capacity in financial management and financial assistance to catalyze industry, address climate risks, and deliver equitable results

Of all the priority areas in the PMA, the business one is the fuzziest. It feels like a lot of administrative things rolled into a couple of strategies without as many specifics on what, how, and why. But clearly a government can’t serve its people if these issues aren’t addressed. To me, these are like the backstage and supporting business processes or systems on a service blueprint — the average citizen may never see how the sausage is made, but they’ll have a bad experience if it’s not done correctly. This highlights the need for the many CX initiatives in government to consider the big picture and adequately research the full customer journey and the elements that contribute to the success or failure of at each touchpoint.

OMB will deploy new Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) goals in early 2022 to cover targets for the PMA-driven initiatives across agencies, and agencies must create four-year strategic plans and two-year Agency Priority Goals (APGs).

EO 14058: Specific CX Directives Driving Progress Forward

This new EO builds on several previous EOs, legislation, and other guidance around customer service and CX, but it re-emphasizes the changes to the A-11 stating, government must deliver services equitably and effectively with a focus on the actual experience of the people whom it is meant to serve. Still in alignment with the A-11, it states that government must have mechanisms for “direct lines of feedback.” After all, without a VoC framework in place, how can government know which experiences are bad and whether they’re improving?

One term that pops up multiple times in the EO is “time tax,” emphasizing that agencies should design experiences that “reduce administrative burdens” and improve efficiency to reduce the time tax on the American people (i.e. the time spent navigating, accessing, and using government services). As also discussed with the PMA, the EO focuses on the federal workforce, saying that workers must be empowered to solve problems.

One part of the EO really stood out to me, though:

Service delivery should be “driven fundamentally by the voice of the customer through human-centered design (HCD) methodologies…customer research… and user testing.”

That is music to my ears, and I’m glad someone else is saying it so I don’t have to — people are probably tired of hearing me repeat it by now. But I love this intersection of HCD, CX, and UX here, especially because so many government services are now accessed digitally — and because so many legacy systems were built without talking to users first.

Other directives in the EO include some specific projects for agencies to tackle:

• IRS: Make it easier to pay taxes and get help
• Interior: Redesign FWS.gov to include a modernized permitting system
• USDA: Explore online purchasing for WIC and simplification of enrollment in assistance programs, as well as implement a simplified farm loan application process
• Labor: Enable workers’ compensation claimants to have better access to telehealth
• HHS: Increase customer support options for Medicare and strengthen maternal health quality measurement, as well as increase access to telehealth and digital records
• Education: Implement a repayment portal on StudentAid.gov for Direct Loan borrowers
• VA: Provide integrated services on VA.gov and the VA mobile app, including personalized online chat
• DHS: Reduce passenger wait times at checkpoints and modernize other systems
• SBA: Establish experience metrics for loan, grant and certification applications, as well as deliver a streamlined online disaster assistance application experience
• Social Security: Modernize systems to allow more services to be digital instead of requiring physical documentation, where possible
• GSA: Redesign USA.gov
• USAID: Revise forms to reduce administrative burdens on local organizations and underserved communities
• USPS: Work with other agencies to allow Americans to update their mailing address for all government services only once

Government leaders will also select a limited number of “customer life experiences” to prioritize for Government-wide action to improve CX. Overall, the EO reiterates much of the previous guidance on measuring and reporting out on CX improvements across government, and it says that new guidance may be established by OMB in the future.

Of note, the EO also includes a reminder about the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA):

“…the Paperwork Reduction Act does not apply to agencies’ general solicitations of public views and feedback, certain ratings and rankings of Federal services by members of the public using Government websites, or direct observations of users interacting with digital tools and products.”

I’ve seen CX and UX teams have varying levels of success within different agencies when it comes to making this argument about PRA, with some seemingly hyper-restrictive policies in place about getting absolutely everything approved by OMB — which severely limits the speed and quantity of customer feedback that programs can get to help them make well-informed decisions. In 2022, I hope to see the administration, OMB, Cabinet-level executives, and CXOs (for those who have them) place more emphasis on this and really shepherd programs that are ready to collect, synthesize, and act now on VoC data. I see it as the single best way that programs can smartly use their limited resources to know where to act first and achieve the vision of the A-11, the PMA, and the new CX EO.