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The new holy grail for federal agencies is great customer experience. Taking their clues from the private sector, agencies are figuring out how digital and actual offerings can work together to produce satisfied citizens. Mallory Barg Bulman, director of research at the Partnership for Public Service, tells Federal Drive with Tom Temin about how the Veterans Affairs Department efforts in improving customer experience.
The government has made progress in the last 15 years, but it's nowhere near a fully digital model.
As more agencies begin to take a closer look at their customer service operations, some organizations, such as the Veterans Affairs Department and the Smithsonian Institution, are developing "customer journey maps" to better respond to consumer feedback and needs.
Dawn Leaf, the Labor Department’s chief information officer, is retiring after more than 17 years in government, while MaryAnn Monroe, the director of customer experience and chief of staff for public experience/USAGov in GSA’s Technology Transformation Service is leaving the government to join the private sector.
One year into a pilot with the Veterans Affairs Innovators Network, the department has made investments into 38 projects and ideas that teams of VA nurses, doctors and other rank-and-file employees have developed at eight medical centers around the country. More than 40 other VA medical centers submitted applications asking to join the Innovators Network.
The Commerce Department wants to train all of its employees in the next two years on digital data tools. It's part of the agency's goal to make the vast amounts of data it collects more accessible to the public.
The "MyAgency" model tries to personalize federal offerings that are in reality offered on a mass scale.
Todd Akers, the vice president of public sector at Acquia, makes the case for agencies to take a page from Apple, GE, Disney and other private sector companies in how they face the public every day.