Enhance Citizen Experiences With Better Service and Support

If you missed them, you can read my previous pieces on improving data accuracy, increasing adoption of government services and ensuring accountability. Continuing my series on how low-code development platforms can transform citizen experience, I’d like to talk about streamlining and improving government support.

It’s no secret that the private sector has thrown massive resources at improving services and support for constituents through automated call centers and chatbots. The ability for customers to access self-service portals streamlines service and support workflows speeds up time to resolution and improves experiences.

It’s also not a secret that government agencies still rely on ancient call center technology and do not always have the budget or resources to rip out legacy systems in favor of solutions powered by advanced automation technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and natural language processing.

Low-code development platforms can help bridge the resource gap and give federal agencies a viable path for improving service and support. Rather than replacing systems, federal IT teams can use low-code to develop simple integrations between these disparate systems, effectively modernizing them in a cost-efficient manner.

Implementing Low-Code in Government Services and Support

Government data is notoriously decentralized across various IT systems, and public servants often have to manually pull data from four, five or six systems to fulfill a single request. This takes time, creates bottlenecks and frustration, and degrades citizen experience. Low-code can build connections between these systems, automatically pulling information from disparate systems into a single user interface (UI). From there, the data can be pulled into the cloud where AI can analyze the information more efficiently and effectively and prompt support personnel appropriately. This “cheat” is a simple and much more cost-efficient way of implementing these advanced technologies to improve workflows and processes, allowing federal agencies to deliver the positive outcomes that people now expect.

Here are three ways federal agencies can use low-code development platforms to improve the citizen experience and enhance government services and support:

1. Improve the effectiveness of government workers: Budget constrictions and a late adopter mindset in the government sector means that the workers on the front lines are often stuck with making do with legacy systems. How many times have you been on the phone with a public servant and heard, “Hold on, my system is running slow”? Using low-code to connect disparate systems and data makes these public servants more productive without having to invest in large rip-and-replace projects. In turn, this speeds time to resolution and improves experiences.
2. Take advantage of advanced automation technologies: The National Park Service is not going to invest in a supercomputer to run a new AI program for improving campsite reservation systems. It’s just not. But it may outsource that capability to an AI/ML service provider. Doing so would still require pulling the necessary data that lives across disparate systems and sending it into the cloud. Low-code is an extremely easy way to accomplish this necessary first step and create a viable, cost-effective path forward for using these powerful new technologies to improve citizen experience.
3. Reduce operational costs: One of the many reasons legacy support systems are so bad is that they are built on ancient technology that requires massive amounts of regular maintenance and configuration to perform at the bare minimum. Making these systems more efficient with a low-code development platform reduces this tech debt, freeing up budget for other line items that actually do enhance the citizen experience — such as a new self-service online portal or automated call center.

Government service and support get a bad rap — mainly due to archaic legacy systems that force public servants to manually collect information across disparate IT systems. Rather than completely replace these systems, federal agencies can use low-code to enhance them with simple integrations and connectors that automatically integrate information in a single repository. From there, agencies can build a better UI for government workers or send the data into the cloud where advanced automation technologies such as AI, ML and natural language processing services can provide enterprise-like business intelligence to streamline workflows and enhance citizen experiences.

You may also be interested in “5 WAYS AGENCIES CAN ENHANCE THE CITIZEN EXPERIENCE WITH LOW-CODE” and “3 STEPS FOR BATTLE-READY DATA.”

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Jason Adolf is a federal sector expert for Appian, an enterprise low-code development platform.