America is facing a critical moment when it comes to housing. An ongoing economic crisis coupled with lingering societal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has created a profound demand for affordable housing, led to increased homelessness, and highlighted the impact of racial bias on equitable homeownership. To address these rising issues while meeting its mission to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is employing new strategies and approaches that center on the department’s “customers” when designing and improving programs. HUD’s actions are factoring customer experience into the agency’s digital solutions and relying on new ways of thinking that balance policy, technology, and customer needs.
HUD’s Customer Experience Lead, Amber Chaudhry, described the department’s approach as a shift from user experience orientation — primarily focused on web design — to true CX service design, where the strategy, design, and implementation of programs and initiatives is rooted in customer research.
An Empathetic Approach to Addressing Housing Discrimination
One of HUD’s central responsibilities is to protect households from discrimination under the nation’s Fair Housing laws. As a High Impact Service Provider (HISP), HUD identified that it could more fully meet this obligation by researching the housing discrimination complaint process through the lens of its participants. The discovery phase called for an empathetic approach, as most “customers” of its Fair Housing enforcement programs come from vulnerable populations and could be experiencing multiple challenges, including post-traumatic stress disorder, simultaneously.
When considering service design improvements, the CX team looked at the needs of both the customer (end user) and the intake staff (employee), who can be affected by the end users’ trauma. By adopting a CX mindset, the team has prototyped a potential new position in the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to embed trauma-informed practices in fair housing enforcement, ensuring that both customers and staff feel supported and empowered throughout the complaint and investigation process. The team has developed an effective customer strategy that was purposefully tailored to track the success of CX improvements for both employees and end users.
Adopting an Enterprisewide CX Mindset
Adopting a CX mindset across an entire enterprise is no easy task. Chaudhry took an intentional approach to gradually build stakeholder support across the agency. She focused her efforts on areas where she could drive value and build interest in a customer-oriented culture. Remaining nimble was key to this success, as well as taking a collaborative approach that leverages federal and HUD plans and data strategies.
For example, Chaudhry worked with the HUD Chief Data Officer to embed CX questions in HUD’s data maturity assessment. The CX-related questions were developed from the principles and goals laid out in the HUD CX Data Strategy, and the effort focused on accelerating implementation, including: discovering CX data that is currently being collected at HUD, finding ways to include CX data in existing data/analytics projects, and determining what HUD data tools and technologies could store/clean/analyze CX data, among other tasks.
The questions were used to seek colleagues’ feedback across the enterprise. This process of building understanding of how others collected and applied CX data fueled further interest in adopting CX principles. As the need for support increased, the CX team collaborated with the Office of the Chief Learning Officer to create a training framework that emphasizes the significance of CX in each program’s mission statement. As a result, CX is gradually taking root throughout the enterprise.
CX Is Central to Good Government
Chaudhry shared that a robust and integrated approach to strategic planning made these CX collaborations possible. Alongside the General Services Administration (GSA) Centers of Excellence, the CX team held strategic planning labs to engage leaders from various HUD program offices. Attendees clarified the concept of human-centered design while exploring potential CX projects and ensuring that CX milestones are embedded in each strategic objective. By adhering to the principle that CX is central to good government, these plans from the strategic planning process pulled forward strategic intent from the HUD strategic plan and the Presidential Management Agenda to develop CX-aligned improvements to each of HUD’s primary functions.
CX-focused digital solutions may look different from agency to agency, but HUD has shown there are valuable lessons learned when adopting a CX mindset. Agencies prioritize collaboration, adopt a customer-centric approach to building digital solutions, regularly collect and utilize user feedback and data, and embed CX as part of their larger strategic goals. No matter the agency or customers served, a CX-focused mindset creates more effective digital solutions.
Mary Schwarz, Managing Partner, ICF Next Government, is a digital strategist and marketing technologist with a comprehensive range of experience in direct marketing, web development, community outreach, and analytics, Mary leads our Government, federal digital and engagement practices. She brings over 20 years of experience providing strategic guidance for health, education, and social programs.
Mary helps clients define their objectives and business goals; map user journeys; and develop incremental and iterative development plans. She also helps clients evaluate the impact and efficiency of their programs, and revise and optimize their digital programs for maximum impact.
Mary has extensive experience crafting data-driven digital and engagement programs using a combination of on- and off-line tactics and strategies. Her work often calls upon deep data analytics to not only inform and tailor experiences, but to drive timing, frequency, and lasting behavior change.
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