Hundreds of agencies provide services to the public, but only about 10% count as High-Impact Service Providers (HISPs) that deliver the most essential benefits across the country.

The White House is calling on HISP agencies to set a higher standard for customer experience (CX) across the federal government.

Better CX in government depends on many factors — shorter wait times, faster responses and more ways to seek help (in person, over the phone, online).

Kurt Sauer, group vice president and chief information security officer at Docusign, said a successful CX strategy also needs to prioritize building trust with customers.

“There’s this whole breakdown, from the actual service being provided, all the way down to every component, down to the end users: all of these comprise trust. We have to think about this from a real bottoms-up point of view,” Sauer said.

A comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is a foundational part of building trust with customers.

“At Docusign, it is important that we understand our environment. We have to have detections and controls in place that make sure that, at the top line, are we a trusted name, but it is also making sure that we’re making rational choices for how we deliver that service,” Sauer said. “It’s way more than just, do you pass FedRAMP? Or did you achieve Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification? It’s actually all the way down to making sure you have good operational control and discipline. ”

Customers seeking government services generally trust the agencies in charge will do a good job. That’s according to the Biden administration’s latest survey of more than a quarter-million individuals.

The survey measured 33 services, and a significant majority of respondents said they trusted the relevant agency responsible for 23 out of the 33 services.

Those services include applying for a replacement Social Security card, accessing VA education benefits, and finding government information quickly online.

“The U.S. government’s done a really good job trying to prioritize improvement and measuring with their trust in government service providers dashboard. That really allows those high-impact service providers in the government to be able to develop a trust relationship with their constituents on a longer-term basis,” Sauer said.

“It’s really about a history. It’s just like any social circle,” he added. “Do you trust the people you’re with? Part of the answer to that question is, what’s their past record of behavior? And is it actually showing that they can be trusted partners in the future?”

Standardized logins for seamless online services

Agencies rely on customer data to provide seamless and personalized services. But customers are also wary of turning over personalized data, unless agencies are transparent in communicating how their data will be used — and how it won’t.

“They’re also dealing with a very skeptical public, in many cases,” Sauer said. “Why should I provide the government my data over a web portal? It breaks down into this chain of trust, in that agencies themselves have to be trusted. They’re also dealing with things like, can the internet itself be trusted?”

To ensure secure and seamless access to services, agencies are rolling out standardized online accounts.

“If you have a really poorly designed platform, it’s not going to provide you with the degree of trust that you need. It has to be monitored, and if you have that together, I think you’ll set your agency up for success,” Sauer said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, is weaning veterans off a traditional username and password to access their health and benefits records online.

The VA will transition all veterans to the government’s own identity verification service, Login.gov, or a commercial provider, ID.me, over the next year.

VA says the transition will improve security, and will impact about 3 million veterans and their beneficiaries.

These standardized platforms also ensure government websites have a consistent look and feel, and reduce the risk of customers falling for spoofed websites created by fraudsters.

“The important point here is making sure that people who are visiting a portal can easily identify that they are visiting a legitimate government site and that the information is not being diverted for some other purpose, that it’s being stored or processed in the way it was intended,” Sauer said.

Adapting to emerging technologies

Building and keeping customer trust also depends on how agencies stay on top of emerging technologies.

Sauer said artificial intelligence tools, for example, will increasingly become part of CX delivery over the next five years.

“It is important to have people who understand the changing landscape of the technology and the customers’ needs and security standards,” he said.

“There are thousands of technologies that seem very obscure and irrelevant but all play a part altogether. It’s this holistic full field-of-play exercise, to be able to make sure that all the customers get a secure experience from their browser and desktop all the way back to whatever back-office systems are being used, and whatever systems those systems use. It’s a chain of trust, and service providers have to be thinking about that all the time.”

Regardless of what new technologies and processes agencies put in place, Sauer said each interaction with a customer is a make-or-break moment to gain — or lose — trust.

“An important point here is that there isn’t a cookie-cutter solution to any of this trust business. If you build trust, you can lose that trust. Service providers need to be open to this multidisciplinary approach to earning and keeping their customers’ trust. It’s not just a security problem.”

Discover more about how to elevate your customer experience in the “Excellent, equitable and secure customer experience: A closer look at high-impact service providers” series. 

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