Employee Experience Impacts Customer Experience
Jimmie Butler
Trusted Advisor to Government Managers || Strategy - Program & Product Management - Organizational Change - Performance Management || Click ?? to never miss my posts!
According to the 2022 Connected Government Report only 17% of respondents say the federal government cares about their experience and only 19% say their local government cares
We often think about customer experience (CX), but little attention is given to the employee experience - the people on the front lines of delivering customer experience.
In this episode of Product-Led Government, I'll share a personal experience, tap into some independent research to show the trust correlation, and reveal insights and analysis from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) conducted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Combined, I will reveal the often overlooked impact employee experience has on delivering exceptional customer experience.
A Personal Experience
The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is a negative experience example that is engrained in my memory.
Back in the day, showing up in person to my local DMV office was a horrible experience. I remember a time when I had to wait an hour to finally get to speak with a representative only to find out I was missing a form that I somehow should have known about. I was told to go fill it out and return to the back of the line again. After another long wait I was told something else was wrong and I had to repeat the process.
The experience was confusing and painful, and several of the representatives working there seemed to hate their job, which made the experience even more unpleasant.
When I visited the DMV, I didn't feel like anyone cared about my experience. Today's online experience isn't great either. I feel like they know I can't go anywhere else so why bother making it better.
Carolyn Colvin, former acting commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration put it like this:
“The way I see it, our customers don’t have a choice when it comes to obtaining our services. They can’t go to a competitor if we are not performing well, so we have an even greater responsibility than does the private sector to provide a great experience for our customers."
I like how Carolyn stated it, “…we have an even greater responsibility than does the private sector…” That is taking ownership of the customer experience challenge.
The Trust Correlation
Poor CX has a direct correlation to the public’s trust of government.
Think about what creates trust between you and another person. Trust comes from believing the other person cares about your experiences, from knowing the other person is competent and reliable, and from knowing the other person has good intent within the relationship. When any of these things are called into question, trust erodes.
The same criteria are true to build trust between government and the public.
A poor employee experience is a factor in failing customer experiences. According to a Harvard Business Review Analytic Services survey, most executives believe it is impossible to provide a great customer experience without providing a great employee experience.
One top barrier to improving CX, the Harvard study showed, is an IT department not understanding the needs of customers.
IT departments are often responsible for software development and the user’s experience (UX) within the digital products they offer, yet they are not connected with customers, they rarely understand the mission impact of what they deliver, and rapidly changing priorities handed down to them produces frustration as they are not always able to see solutions through.
It's not their fault - it's a business architecture problem.
IT folks are frequently seen as service providers delivering requirements for the business versus being equal partners in product outcomes. That can be demotivating. It is certainly limiting product effectiveness.
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The FEVS Revelation
Closer to home for federal government employees, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) conducted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) provides some insights into the employee experience across all government agencies.
The Global Satisfaction Index is down to 62 percent, a steady decline from 2020.
?Cherry-picking a few of the lower-scored questions from FEVS shows a more systemic problem. The survey shows that people are generally very happy with their direct supervisors, but the scores drop off with senior agency leadership.
Key responses scoring less than 50%:
What this data shows is that the people responsible for delivering digital experiences are not in control over what those digital solutions and priorities are.?
Teams often react to what management pushes down into the teams to work on, often at odds with what the team believes is best. Rapidly shifting priorities often puts quality at risk, renders teams inefficient, and produces unnecessary technical debt. The result is demoralized employees.
This survey also starts to reveal that there is a lack of product ownership that no Agile framework can overcome, and user experience is taking the hit. Check out the 4-part series on the Product Owner Crisis to unpack that idea more.
Conclusion
When I went to the DMV those many years ago, I believed those people hated their job and couldn't care less about my experience. I believe today that most government workers have a deep connection with the missions and people they serve and have good intent. But, as the FEVS data reveals, there are factors negatively impacting the employee experience.
How people want to work is limited by the system in which they work, and this, no matter how much Agile, CX, or UX is in focus, is limiting overall customer experience. This is why I believe becoming Product-Led is the right strategy for government.
Jimmie is a Program Director and Strategic Consulting Practice Lead with IntelliBridge helping rebuild trust in government through Product-Led strategy.
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There is no substitute for great customer service.
3 个月These principles could also apply to small businesses. Having been a field service tech for years there is nothing more dreaded than a sour or difficult customer and in many cases the customer was already put in a position to be that way based on processes, policies, and past experiences that set the stage. These situations also call for strong management willing to step in and mediate on behalf of not only the customers but their employees as well. Sole proprietors and mom and pop businesses struggle with these situations as well.