07 Customer Experience
[Kevin Carter](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinrcarter/), Digital Service Expert with the United States Digital Service (USDS) joins us at the Pentagon. We'll engage in a discussion about how customer and employee experience concepts can be combined to improve government services for agencies across government.<br><br>### Resources and Shoutouts:<br>- [Dan Pink Article](https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/04/07/manage-talented-people-bossing-around/)<br>- [President's Management Agenda](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Presidents-Management-Agenda.pdf)<br>- [Move.mil](https://www.move.mil/)<br>- [USDS Fall 2017 Report to Congress](https://www.usds.gov/report-to-congress/2017/fall/)<br>- [USDS Digital Services Playbook](https://playbook.cio.gov/)<br>- [User Research Is Not Illegal, Uncle Sam (Erie Meyer)](https://medium.com/@ErieMeyer/user-research-is-not-illegal-uncle-sam-51f2f92a280a)<br><br>##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)
Top Keywords
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- usds 0.010
- employee 0.009
- employee experience 0.008
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- agencies 0.007
- digital service 0.006
- work 0.006
Transcript
Hello. I'm Ryan Cook, and this is Civic Tech Chat, a podcast about the civic technology movement. We seek to harness the power technology has to improve the delivery of public services to people everywhere. Today's episode is a bit of a special treat. We were able to visit the Pentagon to speak with Kevin Carter, a digital service expert with United States Digital Service. Kevin joined us to talk a bit about customer experience, employee experience, and how those things, when combined together, can improve services for agencies across the government. I have no doubt that you'll enjoy this conversation as much as I did. So let's hop right in. Kevin, thank you so much for being on the program with us today to talk a bit about The US digital service and customers experience.
Could you start off by introducing yourself to our audience? Yeah. Thanks for having me, come and share a little bit about my story working with government. I'm part of the USDS, which is the US Digital Service. We're an agency within the Office of Management and Budget, which is, getting into the weeds, but essentially, we're an office out of the White House. I've worked in government for a number of years. I actually started and like to tell this story that I started as a GS two. So there's almost the bottom barrel. I was moving boxes in a field office in high school. And so I had that experience as, kind of the lowest level employee. And I brought that mentality and understanding of what it's like to be on the front lines of delivering government service, and now I have an opportunity to help shape how agencies approach customer service and citizen service.
Awesome. And to, be clear, for those that are following along there, GS and that number you said, I think you said two. Right? Yeah. That is a, pay grade system. Correct? Yeah. So getting into the weeds here, but,
there's GS one through GS fifteen, fifteen, basically levels of government. Just so you need to know I basically make a minimum wage down at the, entry level starting job is where I started my federal career. And now have the opportunity to to have advanced in my career and be in this place where I get to see government wide and see a lot of different agencies. So it's a very exciting,
place to be. It sounds like it. One question that is kind of a a theme that that I try to ask in all of these episodes is about personal why. So for you working in a role like this, where it sounds like you have to touch many different things, wear many different hats, what is your personal why? What what drives you?
What really drives me and what I'm passionate about is making work not suck. It's where we spend almost all of our time and yet, especially in federal government, it's so hard. And it feels like these people who come to public service, who wanna do good and wanna give back, and then they just bang their heads against the wall all day. And they feel like the bureaucracy and the policies are preventing them from doing so. And so what I and I experienced this as at GS two, and I've seen my friends experience it, when we went through the presidential management fellow fellow program. And I watch as our colleagues across DOD and other agencies struggle with this. And so finding ways to free them up to do the kind of work that matters and not focus all their time on just navigating bureaucracy, but instead doing work that actually improves the lives of citizens.
I I like that phrase you keep using, have work not suck. Yeah. That's that's pretty fantastic. So what what is a day in the life like of someone like yourself that's kind of striving to, again, to achieve that mission of making things not suck around here? Yeah. So what I focus on at the US Digital Service and working with our partners at the Defense Digital Service is really to remove roadblocks.
One of my unofficial job titles is bureaucracy hacker. So figure out how do we work within the system to make things easier or come up with policies that don't infringe on our ability to carry out the mission. So a lot of what I do is help our technical folks achieve what they wanna achieve, and work within the bureaucracy or change the bureaucracy so that they can do it.
I I'm noticing a theme there. It seems like a lot of what we're trying to do is empower folks to get to get past those barriers. Are there any, like, common thing things that are go along with that that you end up engaging with to to try to get people through that?
I think empowerment's a great, word for it. I feel like a lot of people in government feel restricted. They wanna do good. They just feel like their hands are tied or that they're unable to take the risk or take the initiative that they would like to. And so I think a big part of that and what we've done here is demonstrate what happens when you empower your people. What happens when you empower, in this case, military personnel to tackle some of the hardest problems and remove the barriers that keep them from doing that? And the answer is incredible results, with incredible impact. And that's that's a story we try to share and then we try to model through our behavior. As
you work to empower folks in the like, what sort of, tools and what sort of, things you do to, I guess, to achieve that aim? One of the big things we do to empower,
people in the defense digital service has to do with the technology that we provide them. And, also, it sets the culture and the way that we're gonna operate. So on day one, everybody gets computer. Everybody gets access to the tools that they need, whether it's, like, the Google suite of products or Slack or Trello. The actual tool doesn't matter, but what matters is they have access to whatever tool they might need to get the job done. And I compared that experience being in the defense digital service versus when I was in government at a prior agency and came into government, came into the job, it took three weeks to get a desktop computer. Oh, wow. And I wandered the halls looking for things to do and that set the tone for how we were gonna operate and what the agency thought of its employees. So you contrast that with this experience where we give you state of the art technology. We use Wi Fi, you have the technology tools to get the mission done, that's one of the ways that you can empower your people.
That makes a lot of sense. From my own experiences, I I too have observed that there can be, barriers to to getting the tools you need, much like the story you mentioned with getting a computer or, you know, being able only to use like specific software products in certain environments which is something I that I've seen. Do you come across resistance as you attempt to like help folks get those sorts of tools and access to them? Is is that something you run into? Yeah. I mean,
within the defense digital service, we're unique. And with USDS, I think they're unique in that they are able to get these tools. But for the vast majority of federal employees, unfortunately, they are still feel like it may still take the three weeks. Mhmm. And the reason is because over time, policies have developed that, are well intentioned at the beginning. They're focused on, okay, we need to make sure this security parameter is met or we need to do an inventory of laptops before one can be issued. And they keep adding steps, and some of those steps are value added. Some of those steps are simply a compliance mechanism, but nobody's really considered or nobody who's part of that process is incentivized to focus on the employee experience. So nobody step back and say, okay. We put in all these checkpoints. But at the end of the day, we've created a process now that takes that three weeks to get a laptop. How do we balance the compliance and the security needs with the customer experience need?
So I I think this is a good chance for us to shift gears and talk a bit about the customer experience topic that we're getting into here. Could you, go at a at, I guess, at a high level? Could you describe, what is meant by that term in this context? Yeah. I think
I was very fortunate in around 2012, 2011, was the first time government had really made an emphasis around the idea that a citizen is a customer. And that when you're going to these federal agencies, you're really a customer of their services. And so in February, my dates could be a little off, president Obama issued the executive order on customer service and asked agencies to prioritize it. And then the following year, there was a cross agency priority goal that brought in all the different agencies to kind of learn from each other. How do you measure customer service? How do you improve it? So it was a great chance. I beg, borrowed, and stole a lot of ideas from a lot of agencies that were leading the pack. And so it was nice to be a part of that. But I'd say even then, customer service was something that not all agencies were bought into. And even then, customer service though was also something that was already somewhat outdated in the private sector. The private sector was talking about customer service as a holistic customer experience and recognizing that all of the touch points that you interact with a brand or a company influences your experience as a customer. Government at that time was really viewing it still from the lens of how does my call center work? How does my email inbox work? How responsive am I to those sorts of things? Am I measuring customer satisfaction? But not really looking at that holistic experience. I'd say there's been an evolution over the last five, six years, and you saw this in the most recent presidential management agenda where they're actually calling it now customer experience. And that's where I think USDS is such an important part of that. And one of the reasons they're called out multiple times in that report is that we are using digital tools to improve that customer experience. And so you look at the work that USDS is doing, whether it's for immigration or helping military families move, it's about using digital technology and modern development principles to build tools that improve the customer experience.
You you've mentioned, the terms customer service and customer experience both and, as you were talking about that. And I noticed that there's a bit of a distinction between the two. Sounds like for one, you're you're trying to serve someone, trying to do like some sort of thing to get them what they need. Whereas the other, it sounds like it's more like you're trying to create an ecosystem of activities that all go towards some same goal, for that individual or individuals. I am I on the right track with with that distinction? Yeah. I think that's a very
good way to describe it. I personally describe it as customer service may be the one interaction that you have. So it may be answering the phone when you call, the Veterans Affairs office about your claim or it may be the one interaction you have with a postman delivering a letter. But the customer experiences the holistic summation of all those touch points. And so it becomes about what does your web presence look like? What does your your interactions to request services, whether it's in person or online or over the phone? What does your physical building look like if I'm going a veteran going into a medical center? How is the building set up, with me in mind or is it done separately? And so I think of some of these medical centers where you might have to walk a 200 yard lobby. That's not taking into account what the customer experience, who might be somebody who's disabled or using a walker, they can have the best customer service in the world, but the experience might still be detrimental because of, in this example, physical space.
That's interesting. And it it seems to imply that there's a bit of accessibility concern in in that process as well, when you're trying to create that holistic
experience. Would that be correct? Yeah. I I hadn't thought about that, but I think accessibility, is a great way to put it. And I think digital accessibility is something that USDS is helping with as well, making websites easier to use. And you think about who government's customers are, oftentimes are people who are disadvantaged or disabled. And we make it incredibly difficult for them to navigate some of these hoops. And so when we talk about customer experience, recognizing that we have 100% market share for some of these populations that are being ignored by private sector services, and the government's the one who's supposed to be providing the services, how do we then build an experience that's accessible for them?
Yeah. It sounds like that would be a bit of a challenge. You know, a lot of companies in the private sector, like, they can say, hey, this is my target audience, let's build something that's specifically for them. But this is the government, the institution of the people. So for you, your target audience is, well, everybody. Right? Are there like some really specific challenges that kind of come trying to address it from that kind of like a broad base?
Yeah. I think there are challenges, but I'd also say one of the things that you said the private sector will build things for a target population. I think what the private sector is starting to realize and government is starting to do this as well is not just building it for them, but one of our slogans at USDS is actually built with the user, not for the user. And so one of the ways that we've overcome those challenges is by sitting down with the user and really understanding how do they use government services, how do they access the website as it as it is now, and then how do we build it based on those interactions.
Also, earlier in our conversation about this, you mentioned, something called the president's management agenda.
Could you describe, what that is for, folks that may not be familiar? Yeah. The president's management agenda, even for people who aren't in government, they should probably take a look. It's essentially what are the priorities that are across government that kind of affect all agencies, and where the president wants to take, government services. And so this year, I was really excited because there were two goals that I thought were really related to what I like to focus on and what USDS is focused on. One goal was improve customer experience with federal services, and then the second was to develop a workforce for the twenty first century. And I think both of those are needed technology to break down barriers and increase communication between federal agencies and the citizens they serve. I think that's right in line with everything that the US Digital Service does and it's one of the reasons that the US Digital Service was called out and had its
work, spotlighted, multiple times within the report. That's really interesting. It it seems like in that mission you were describing there, we're leveraging technology to break down barriers, that that that statement. There's really like three parties involved in that process. There's an agency, there's a relationship to another citizens themselves that are interacting with them. Does that sort of setup present any unique challenges of its own of its own trying to break down those barriers and trying to optimize
that throughput? Yeah. One of the big challenges that government has that I don't think necessarily the private sector may have is that there are multiple sources for services that are very similar. And so if I go to a company, the company has an incentive to only have me go to them for their service. Whereas if I am a homeless veteran, there might be a number of agencies that can support me, whether it's the VA, Department of Labor, HUD, all these different agencies have programs or initiatives that are funded by Congress that will address that problem set. But they don't do a great job of communicating or working together to deliver this package of services to the consumer. And so I don't think we've figured that out yet. But from the customer experience, we're really concerned about making sure the citizen and the customer has this great experience. I shouldn't have to go to multiple agencies to get a service. I shouldn't I may not even be aware that these programs exist at the different agencies. So how do I view the government as one door, and how can I go to one place based on my need? And then the programs drive support based on my need rather than it being structured around the actual program offices or agencies.
That makes a lot of sense. I I I imagine from your per like, from the citizens perspective or the person's perspective that's interacting, to them they they don't really care, you know, where the service is coming from. They just want are trying to get the thing they need. So it sounds like ultimately what we're trying to do is achieve that sort of equilibrium where to to them, they've come, they need the service whether it's homelessness or some other thing if they're Yeah. And, they'll approach the government and be able to get it in a clean seamless way. Am am I hearing that properly? Yeah. You probably summarized it better than I did. So you also mentioned the importance of developing a workforce for the twenty first century as something to support, trying to improve services in the way we've been discussing. Could you give us a little more detail about what that can mean, delve into that subject?
So when I was talking about how almost six, seven years ago, government had come out with this report about customer service and at the time it was already almost outdated in industry where industry was thinking about customer experience, having come from industry before USDS, I can say industry is already starting to think about customer experience differently. And they're thinking about it in two prisms. One, digital, which I think we've already touched. And then the second is employee experience. A lot of companies are starting to realize that in order to impact the customer experience, you have to focus on the employee experience. And that gets back to the story of waiting three weeks for a laptop as an employee, that how you treat your employees is gonna influence how they treat their customers. And then the other thing with government that I think is unique, getting back to the fact that government has, in a lot of cases, populations that are underserved, is that sometimes you can build digital tools, but at the end of the day, the citizen can't access them. Maybe they don't have access to, a computer or maybe they're homeless or dealing with poverty. And if that's the case, then it becomes even more important to ensure that your employees have the tools they need to service those populations because they can't self-service,
like many customers of private sector companies do. Oh, that's a really good point. They as you mentioned, they may not have the device you expect them to. Even instead of computer, maybe they have just a phone or a tablet that is like a loaner. So I I I think you make a really good point in indicating that that's something that needs to be looked at. Otherwise you end up building something that if you know, if no one can use it, it's not really helping anybody out. Yeah. In, in one of the materials you you kinda sent over, for me as I was getting up to speed on this, there was a quote from, Dan Pink that you pointed out where, it mentions talented people need organizations less than organizations need talented people. I I find that to be kind of an interesting, way to look at at, managing talent. Could you elaborate, I guess, a little bit on maybe what that sentiment is? Yeah. First off, if you aren't reading Dan Pink,
go do so. Don't listen to me ramble because, he is a much better mind when it comes to this sort of organizational, development stuff than I am. But they think the quote is something that's especially true in government. And, again, it's talented people need organizations less than organizations need talented people. And the goal in the president's management agenda recognizes that fact. It recognizes recognizes that fact. It recognizes that government is competing for top talent, especially in the technical fields with the private sector. And we need to focus on what the employee's experience is, and it goes beyond just compensation and benefits, but really what are the competitive advantages that the government has. And I think the biggest competitive advantage for the government is letting people work on problems that matter, that impact, that have the most impact for the most amount of people, and that's what USDS has tried to do. But I think you also need to make sure that the employees because they have the opportunity and so much choice, they're they're not gonna stick around if they have to wait again three weeks for a computer or if they feel like they can't carry out their job because they don't have access to the latest tools or technology. They now have more choice and there's a greater tolerance for people switching jobs, and so they're gonna vote with their feet. And government sees that a lot, especially with millennials. 7% of the government workforce is 30. Compared to the private sector, it's almost a quarter. So government is having a very very difficult time attracting the type of talent that it needs, especially with as we move into a more digital age.
So are there, I guess are there common themes that perhaps lie behind that that difference you mentioned? Are there reasons maybe that perhaps that that young younger folks, millennials aren't engaged with government at the same rate?
I really think one of the big reasons, and this is just anecdotal is that digital natives and people like us that grew up with technology approach problems from a solution of, and when we're hindered or restricted from using technology that we know is out there, in fact, the technology in our private private lives is better than what might be available to me here at the DOD. I'm not going to stick around or I'm gonna get frustrated. So you think about all the things that you can do. It's interesting that for for I'd say up until the last twenty years, big organizations, not just government, but like the years, big organizations, not just government, but, like, the GEs of the world, the Intels of the world, that's where cutting edge technology was for the employees to use. Right? Like, my dad only had a computer at work. We didn't have a personal computer until, like, early two thousands. And now you have a better computer in your pocket than you might have at your desk. And you have access to technology and tools that are free online that you can use in your personal life to manage if you have a side business or your personal finances or whatever you're doing in your personal life, but we've shut down your access to those, to use for your government work. Awesome. So it sounds like those barriers
end up leading essentially to increased stress and, I guess, ultimately burnout. Would would that be would that be right? Yeah. I think the biggest thing again, I
say people will come to government for less pay. Not that government always pays less, but they're willing to make sacrifices to work on the mission. And if people can't work on the mission or feel that there are policy or technology restrictions from keeping them working on the mission, then they've lost the incentive to stick around.
That makes a lot of sense. That that seems to to keep going back to that theme of, you know, empowering, the folks that are that are working for you. You. It seems like if you do that then they're more apt to provide solutions that then help the the folks that we're trying to serve in government. If there was one, I guess like worst pain point that you would point out. Like let's say you had a a like the I guess the classic magic wand question where if you could wave a magic wand and fix one pain point in in what you've been describing so far, what would you, pick for that? I think hiring continues to be
one of the most difficult parts for government to get right. And it's so vital to make sure that you have the right people working on the right projects at the right times. And we've allowed well intentioned compliance, rule based, intentioned compliance, rule based, policy to drive the hiring process rather than the mission needs or the business needs, which is a really, I think, where where the private sector and government diverge quite a bit. Mhmm. Is that in small startups, especially, they're going out and getting the talent they need at the time they need it and bringing them in within the rules and the laws that govern HR. But from what I've seen, and this continues to be a hurdle as we try to bring in talent, is government is focused on the rules more than focused on the mission and then applying the rules.
Oh, I see. So the the compliance side of it ends up taking, perhaps too much importance on that balance. Yeah. So so we've talked a bit about, I guess the the act of trying to improve customer experience and employee experience. Let's talk a bit, I guess, about the the why. Like, what, what benefits come from creating that, like, holistic experience?
Yeah. Well, I think from the employee experience perspective, you get better mission outcomes. So ideally, if you're doing better, employee experience, you're going to improve the customer's experience. And why do you wanna improve the customer's experience? Well, in a lot of these cases, it's about access to services. It's not just like, oh, I'm happy with the VA. That's a goal in itself. No. They're gonna be happy with the VA because they're now getting the medical care that's improving their lives or they're getting access to benefits that they've earned. Satisfaction is a byproduct of the fact that they're able to get access to programs and government services.
So are there any, either projects or or agencies that you would kind of point to as being like the the poster child for success in in these methods? I
think I should say, almost everywhere USDS has touched is some great example. But there are certainly agencies across government, that are doing great work either in house or partnering with, private sector contracting firms or consulting firms to deliver these services. I'll give some shout outs for our teams here at the DOD. Recently, you can go on move.mil and see the work that they've done to really reinvent the way that military families move when they're, have to go to a new duty duty station. And what used to be one of the most stressful periods in people's lives. You consider how stressful moving is and then think about even though you're staying within the military, you're changing jobs. The team here at the Defense Digital Service partnering with, the DOD component that's in charge of that really brought a user user perspective, understood the customer, and then delivered a solution that is digital. It's what you would on par with what you would expect from the private sector. And as a result, customer satisfaction they're already seeing is increasing.
That sounds remarkable. I I've observed, I guess, folks trying to go through that process before, this came, and it was you described it aptly. It is it was very stressful to watch someone go through that. Because as you mentioned, you know, you're not only moving but you have all of the process that that with your chain of command, all of that just for your transfer or even if just to move to a new base. And it's complicated. So it's really cool to hear that there's a project to simplify that. I imagine that there's a lot of, thankful, military folks out there. Yeah. And I highly recommend,
one, that's a great place to see if you wanna see the great work that USDS and DDS are doing. Check check out the actual products. You can go on move.mil, or you can see some of the other work that we've done with, say, eight a small businesses. You can go on usds.gov, and we actually have a report that we send up to congress that's unlike most government reports very easy to read, and to the point. And it highlights all the great work that we're doing across our different teams.
An easy to read government report. That might be the most remarkable thing that we've, talked about so far. Cool. So like these projects all, sound wonderful and like the idea of creating this holistic experience. So let's say there's someone out there that they're ready to buy in. They're they're convinced by what we've talked about so far today. What would you recommend as first steps to to learn more and and engage with this customer and employee experience concept?
Yeah. This is something I've thought about because I've been, again, that g s two on the front lines in a field office. I know what it's like where you hear these things. You read them in the presidential management agenda. You say, I wanna go this direction. I agree with, some of the thought leadership that's being put out there, but I'm hand tied, and I don't know what the next step is. And it's great that, like, USDS has all this freedom, but I am little old me and my agency, and I don't know where to get started or I don't know how to get buy in from my leadership. And so I kinda came up with a couple ideas of what you can do in the next five days, five weeks, or five months, that can start you on this journey that USDS helps agencies go down. Within the next five days, I recommend go to usds.gov and check out our digital services playbook. And if you're an experienced professional, also apply. We're always looking at resumes, especially if you have technical talent. We need more of you to come give a tour of duty. But even if you're not, read The US Digital Service Playbook. It's got 13 key plays drawn from our experience of how to build digital services. And I've heard from private sector companies that they use it and read it as well. It's one of their, guiding, north stars for how they will operate. Five weeks is a little midterm. Go talk to your customers. Sit with them. Learn. Regardless of what you do, even if you're not building digital products, if you're a policy person or your business operations for a government agency, you can talk to your customers. It's not illegal. There's a great blog post that if you wanna read about it, it's called user research is not illegal, uncle Sam. And it was USDS alum. And she goes through the fact that, like, your legal team's gonna throw up hurdles or people who think they're in the know are gonna say, oh, you can't talk to users. It's paperwork reduction act. They're gonna give you all these reasons you can't do it. But the fact of the matter is we're here to serve our customers. And to serve them, we have to understand them and understand their needs first. That's something you can do tomorrow or within the next five weeks. Longer term, and this gets back to the employee experiences, I really recommend giving your employees tools or technology that helps them do their job. You might not be able to get Slack. You might not be able to have Google Docs. But somewhere within your agency, there's probably a pilot group because we love pilots. Figure out how you can get your group or yourself signed on to that pilot. Start small. Just try it. We've tried it here at DDS. The fact of the matter is there aren't laws that prohibit you from using these things. There are certain things that you have to ensure in terms of security and freedom of information act. But there are demonstrated agencies that have done this, and you can do it too. And the things that are preventing agencies from doing it is usually internal policy. So again, try to figure out is there a pilot going on. Jump either yourself if you're an individual or if you're managing a group. Try to get yourself on that pilot or talk with somebody in who's one of your IT providers within your agency. See where their mind's going and see if you can be a guinea pig for them.
Yep. Those those sound like some really excellent resources. Having read over the the playbook that you mentioned, there'll be folks out there, especially those with that kind of design or UX researcher background, they're gonna find some themes that they'll enjoy. Whoever whoever, was involved in putting that playbook to get that together definitely had some education on like really good design practices and really good research habits for as far as solution design goes. Someone who's listening that is now interested in USDS, as as you mentioned, they're they're always looking. Could you maybe talk about like the sort of agencies that United States Digital Service works with? Maybe like what kind of stuff they'd interact with?
Yeah. So one of the nice things about government, I think, is it does so many cool things. Like and you don't really realize it until you get into it, but some of the most exciting, impactful work that's being done in this country is being done by our government. Whether it's, I don't know, protecting our borders or trying to, put a man on the moon or on Mars or, securing our food, supply. Those are work that government does. But USDS is across a lot of those teams that do that type of work, and they're providing digital tools that help those people do their jobs. We have teams the one I help is here at the DOD, Department of Defense. We also have teams at Health and Human Services, Veterans Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Small Business Administration, and General Services Administration, all working on different missions. So I think if you're interested in interested in applying, not only getting familiar, especially if you're coming outside of government, not only getting familiar with USDS's work, but also getting familiar with those agencies' unique missions and where you might see yourself, would really give you a great starting place.
Fantastic. Now we've talked a bit about both, you know, it's an individual who wants to interact with USDS, and we've also talked a bit about, folks that want to maybe engage in these in better practices for customer experience and employee experience. Are there any, like, common pitfalls or, like, limitations as one starts out, that perhaps that you would advise them to look out for?
Yeah. I think where I've seen digital or customer experience fall short is when it's not integrated into the business. And so sometimes I've seen a customer service officer be at an agency or a company, but they're somewhat siloed from, say, the marketing or the business operations. And that's certainly true especially as this role is newly evolving in government. And so I've seen some agencies that have somebody who's in charge of digital. And what that means at the agency is really a social media or marketing and communications. And that's certainly a component of digital, but it also needs to be integrated in having conversations and helping to change change how the business operates. And so I I have seen this agency, a a different agency, that has a digital director, and they are putting out lots of great work on social media channels, and they're driving people to let them know what resources are available. But then as a consumer of those available. But then as a consumer of those products or services, I go to the agency website and the website is still static pages and it's still fifteen years old. And then the service I I find the page for the program offset offers a service, and then I click on it. And then there's a form that I have to print out and fill in and fax over. And so it's not that they're not going in the right direction because I think recognizing and pushing people to those resources is a great start, but digital also needs to be embedded into the business side and work with the business side, to help change the way people interact with those services.
Yeah. I would imagine that, that, you know, someone coming across like that service you're describing that is a link, then to a page, that's to a document. I I imagine someone maybe gets through like a couple of those hoops and is perhaps apt to then give up on it and and not engage with that service, which is of course unfortunate. And it from what you're saying, it sounds a bit like, what you're trying to get at is that that customer experience element and that digital element need to be at the table, like, very early on in organization's process as whether they're implementing this specifically or just in their overall, strategy. Am am I hearing you? Yeah. I I think that's dead on. And fighting for a seat at the table is something
that we do on all our projects in terms of, not making sure technical talent's at the table to make the technical decisions, making sure a user design expert is at the table, to provide that voice of the customer. And the same with digital and employee experience, I think it's important that those things are valued just as much as the policy side or the legal side. All those have their place, but it gets back to what we talked about earlier where if you don't have the voice of the customer or the voice of the employee at the table, you suddenly start getting a hiring process that continues to creep and takes six months because they're focused on the compliance rather than the holistic. What does does this feel like if I go through it as a as a potential job applicant?
That's interesting. I I really like that that use of the terms, like voice of the customer and voice of the employee, in in your answer there. It it sounds like if you were able to harness the the value of those two things appropriately, you would end up with kind of like a force multiplier in your organization, whether it's for the product you're making or the service you're trying to provide. Is that kind of what you're alluding to? Yeah. I think that's a great way to put it. Great way to put it. So one thing I like to do in these podcast episodes of course is to try to gaze into the future and lean on your experience to do so. So these, concepts of customer experience, employee experience, and these efforts that you've been describing today, how do you view that progressing in the future? Yeah. So I came from a change management background where we did communications, training, all the typical side of change management that went along with, rolling out of a new digital platform or a new technology system. I think
those days of that skill set are coming close to an end in terms of, change management is not going to necessarily exist ten years from now. And I think it's gonna be much more focused instead on change enablement. And what I mean, what differentiates those is change management about taking a really, really painful process and trying to make it somewhat more manageable. Mhmm. So we deploy a new system, and we're gonna do town halls. We're gonna do newsletters. We're gonna do mandatory trainings, so that people know how to use this system that they really don't wanna use. And that's what change management has been centered around for, I don't know, the last twenty years and what a lot of contracting firms have made money selling, to the government to help them implement these changes. I think where we're gonna go, and this gets back to the user experience and bringing in that voice of the customer, is more of a change enablement, and the skill sets that are gonna matter more are around human centered design, user perspective. And so nobody teaches us when Amazon releases a new feature on their website or the iPhone, doesn't update. Nobody's teaching you how to do that. Nobody's doing a change management campaign. They're not running ads, say, be aware that this change is coming, complete your mandatory training. Instead, they've built a system with the user in mind that's intuitive to use, that naturally evolves. They're constantly taking feedback and editing them. And I think that's the direction government services are going to go and we're already starting to see them go. I just sometimes see that overlooked when deploying things that help the employee. So we're still because I think their employees are often make the assumption that if we just require this change, they'll have to do it. But it gets back to the fact that organizations need talented people more than talented people need organizations. And if you make it painful enough, they will leave.
Are are practices involved with, that as far as, you know, having that voice of the customer involved as you mentioned versus that voice of the employee that it it sounds like there perhaps is room for improvement in a lot of places for that. Are those practices inherently similar or or are there differences
in how you do that? Yeah. I think they're kind of one in the same. The employee is a customer of somebody within your organization. They are the customer of your HR shop. They are the customer of your IT support. They should be viewed with the same lens that you view your customer who's either paying for a service or applying for a service from the general public.
That makes a lot of sense. I I could definitely it it it sounds like a very common thread, the way you're describing it there. So as we start start to draw to a close here with this episode, could you leave our listeners with, I guess your concluding thoughts on our topic we've talked about today.
Yeah. And this is maybe a common thread but not something that I think was brought out and I'll be explicit in it. It is around the part of employee experience is empowering the employee. I think if you were to ask your employees what they want most, it's to work on things that matter, especially in government, which is the reason why they came came to government. And so trusting your employees, finding ways to help them help citizens is, especially for an HR department, the most important role that they can serve. And so I would say, trust your employees, find ways to empower them, focus on the employee experience, and you're going to see your ability to meet your mission and deliver outstanding customer or citizen experience, whoever that base is. You'll see that improve.
Fantastic. And, Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to, join us. This is certainly a topic that, perhaps folks don't think about on a daily basis if it's not something that they themselves are heavily involved in. So I really appreciate the fact that you came here and educated us a bit on it today. Yeah. Thank you very much. It was enjoyable. You can follow us on Twitter using the handle at civic tech chat. Visit us on the web at civictech.chat, or subscribe to us for content updates wherever it is you download your podcasts.
