Transforming the Citizen Experience

Do you know the role of digital engagement in improving citizen experience? It’s more critical than ever.

Citizen experience is a challenge all government agencies face. People expect the government to operate like the private sector and the government needs to make that possible. Being clear, relevant and engaging are key factors to having successful citizen experience.

In GovLoop’s online training, “Transforming the Citizen Experience,” John Simpson, Digital Engagement Strategist at GovDelivery, and Dylan McCaugherty, Interactive Digital Media Manager at Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, discussed how critical it is to improve the citizen/customer experience. This experience greatly impacts the quality of the government/citizen relationship.

With everything being more and more mobile, it has become crucial that you are engaging, to the point and easily accessible because as we learned, the average attention span is eight seconds. With the right technology, data analytics and communicating with the customer, the government can improve their citizen experience. Simpson and McCaugherty provided the following tips to achieving this goal:

Know your citizens. You want to establish a relationship. Personalize their experience. Engage and re-engage with your customer. Everything should be accessible and navigable. Don’t overcomplicate things for your customers.

“The more customized your message is, the more engaged the citizen is,” said Simpson.

Tell your story. This goes back to knowing your customer and engaging with them. You should always be honest and tell your story because that’s what the citizen wants. They want to know you.

McCaugherty told us you need to have objectives and embrace opportunities to improve citizen engagement. He also discussed how the NGPC uses an auto-trigger email strategy to have a one-on-one relationship with their customers.

Track your data. Collecting and tracking your data is necessary. This information shows you everything you need to know. Who you’re reaching, what citizens are clicking on, opening and your overall website activity. One metric isn’t enough, you need to see the whole picture.

Review your feedback. Your customers have things they want to tell you. You have mounds of information and metrics available to you. This data tells you what’s working and what’s not. Seeing what the customers are saying is so important. The citizen is literally telling you how they feel and what they want.

Think about it this way. You would want someone to tell you if there was a better, simpler way to do something. The government appreciates citizen feedback because that is the way they improve.

Be there. Being there for your customer directly relates back to customer service. When the citizen engages with you, you want to be there for them. It builds strong relationships and it makes you more reliable. People like when they can count on someone, the same goes for any organization.

Since the goal is to make sure that the citizen has a great experience, let’s improve the citizen experience with these tips.