New Report Finds Federal Agencies Failing to Adequately Digitalize Public Services or Measure Customer Experience
WASHINGTON—Nearly a year after President Biden ordered federal agencies to focus on improving customer experience in public services, agencies are still doing a poor job of measuring satisfaction, and they are conspicuously lagging in offering digital services, according to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy.
The report focuses on “high-impact service providers” (HISPs) within the federal government, which are agencies that have large customer bases or provide vital services, such as the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and Veterans Affairs. HISPs are insufficiently measuring customer satisfaction with their digital services and don’t have a clear method to incorporate feedback, according to ITIF.
“You can’t improve what you’re not measuring, and many of the government’s high-impact service providers aren’t measuring customers’ experience with digital channels well enough, if they’re measuring at all,” said Eric Egan, a policy fellow for digital government at ITIF. “To meaningfully improve customer experience, agencies need to accelerate their adoption of digital services, because customers today expect to be able to do almost everything with computers and smartphones. The next step is to systematically capture customer feedback through interactions with websites and mobile applications. The goal should be to have a digital feedback loop that drives continuous improvement and innovation.”
According to the report, HISP adoption of best-in-class digital services is too low, with federal websites and apps offering inconsistent and varying user experiences that are generally worse than that of the private sector. ITIF shows that the low level of adoption stems from HISPs not complying with existing requirements or taking advantage of available resources and technologies; other factors that impact adoption include regulatory barriers, poor organizational processes, and limited access to funding.
To better the public’s customer experience of HISPs, ITIF recommends the following:
- The Government Accountability Office (GAO) should investigate HISP compliance with requirements of 21st Century IDEA, which is the latest substantive legislation reflecting the federal government’s continued awareness that digital services are pivotal to improving customer experience.
- The General Service Administration’s (GSA) IT Modernization Center of Excellence for Customer Experience and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should lead a one-time task force of commercial partners, customer experience experts and service designers from the federal government, and customer end users to evaluate HISP digital platforms from a customer experience lens and help HISPs implement organizational best practices.
- OMB should update the annual President’s Management Agenda Customer Experience Action Plan and Capacity Assessment templates to require more thorough reporting on the progress of digital services in HISPs.
- HISPs should improve customer research data collection by integrating feedback surveys across their high-use, public-facing digital channels, if they haven’t already, and incorporating existing data from the Federal Digital Analytics Program (DAP).
- Congress should continue to reform regulatory frameworks that limit the growth of digital services in federal government, starting with passing the AGILE Procurement Act.
- OMB should earmark Technology Modernization Fund money to enhance customer-facing digital services specifically for HISPs.
“Federal customers expect at least adequate digital experiences, and it is long past time the federal government accommodated them. Customers shouldn’t need a user manual for basic tasks and the online services should actually do what they’re supposed to do,” said Egan. “Policymakers’ efforts—from management agendas and action plans to laws and executive orders—will continue to be ineffective if they do not take appropriate steps to catalyze digital transformation to support better customer experience.”
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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute focusing on the intersection of technological innovation and public policy. Recognized by its peers in the think tank community as the global center of excellence for science and technology policy, ITIF’s mission is to formulate and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress.
