Citizens as Customers? How the Public Sector Is Benefitting from a Major Shift

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Agricultural Adjustment Act into law in 1933 as part of the New Deal, his biggest aim was ending the Dust Bowl and jumpstarting the livelihood of American farmers. No one was thinking of considering these farmers as “customers” at that time.  

But in reality, that’s exactly what FDR was doing. His signature legislation was about making lasting change in the lives of citizens who were facing the worst economic crisis in American history. It’s been almost a century since that landmark act, and yet what’s been happening over the past several years has indeed been a shift in mentality in treating citizens not just as service recipients, but as customers.

This shift to “citizens as customers” is shaping up as a worldwide trend in the public sector. Historically, government services have been delivered from the inside out, based on how the bureaucracy is structured. But leading government organizations are shifting to start on the outside, orienting their programs around the customer instead of the bureaucracy. This is partly driven by new enabling technology like cloud services, mobile apps and AI, and partly driven by rising expectations from the public. 

A prime example is, coincidentally, none other than today’s United States Department of Agriculture, which has quietly been making its case as a leader in digital transformation. Particularly under the leadership of current Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, the USDA has grown to fully embrace technology for the greater good, carrying out a trailblazing vision on how to thoroughly engage its constituents: the ranchers and farmers of America.

The USDA recently set up an innovative website to improve customer service for those constituents, an initiative that wouldn’t have been possible if not for the “customer-first” attitude of the agency. That site, Farmers.gov, offers tools that range from a “disaster assistance discovery” tool that matches agricultural producers with programs they need after natural catastrophes, to an H-2A Checklist, which is a custom, printable form built around farmers’ hiring needs and one that provides personal insights on application requirements, fees, forms, and timelines. 

The USDA isn’t just using technology for technology’s sake, but rather leveraging it with a deliberate intent to better serve its customers. And it’s a leader in this shift toward agencies thinking about beneficiaries, program recipients, farmers, small business owners, elderly, and children – all of whom the public sector exists to serve – as customers.

There are other prominent public sector bodies that have embraced this idea. Take Amtrak, for instance, which transports 32 million passengers annually between 500 stations across the country. To better serve those customers, Chief Technology Office Sovan Shatpathy up-leveled Amtrak’s tech stack onto the cloud to gain a data-driven, unified look at those passengers in real time. Meanwhile, the City of Chicago re-platformed its 311 call system on the FedRAMP-authorized Salesforce Government Cloud for a centralized approach to incoming calls.

These are not insignificant moves. The public sector has been notoriously slow to adopt the latest technology thanks to budgetary constraints and regular turnover. Solutions like Salesforce provide the ability for agencies to tackle old problems in innovative ways, at low cost and with a low barrier to entry. In Salesforce’s case, we make sure our public sector customers have access to the latest CRM platforms that allow them to develop their own applications that work for them – ones based on “clicks, not code.” These platforms are designed to be approachable to all, something in which Salesforce has been a pioneer since our founding 20 years ago. And the sort of transformations like those in the public sector are what we have in mind when we’re building these products. 

However, it’s not just the tech itself that has accelerated these shifts; it’s also legislation. The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) – passed a year ago – requires public agencies to think about user experience rather than just blindly build with tech tools. Paramount among this is an emphasis on modernizing web presence, or deploying user-centered design, much like the USDA’s Farmers.gov. Policies enacted by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget have also encouraged digital thinking and user-centric design. 

In addition to this shift in thinking, the public sector has also focused on bringing outsiders into the fold by creating opportunities for workers with these foundational digital skills. In essence, we’re now able to compete for tech talent in a way we never have previously. Agencies are also creating efficiencies in pairing these specialized employees with longtime government employees who have a deep understanding of how an agency functions. The end result is teams that tackle challenges in an agile way.

The way the public sector views technology is a vital aspect of maintaining agility in this era of digital transformation. In a space that often has limited resources, complex procurement regulations and existing employees with limited digital skills, it’s of the utmost importance we view technology as a key shift that helps to a different way of offering services that are truly focused on the customer.

I addressed this subject in more depth during my Government Keynote at this year’s Dreamforce. You can also visit the Salesforce Government Industries home page to learn more about some innovative case studies.