Enhancing Citizen Digital Experiences With Data Insights

This article is an excerpt from GovLoop’s guide, “Government’s Customer Experience Playbook.” Download the full guide here.

Digital transformation involves fundamentally changing the way an organization conducts business. It’s about more than a new tool or website. What propels true transformation is understanding what citizens want from government services and how technology and process improvements can meet those needs.

Driving these changes are requirements for agencies to comply with laws that mandate modernization, such as the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA). In a recent interview with GovLoop, Robert Withers, Director of Public Sector at New Relic, a leader for providing real-time performance insights for monitoring citizens experience, explained why it’s critical for government to deliver modern digital services and how agencies can achieve that goal.

Understanding the citizen experience is rooted in the use of accurate quantitative and qualitative metrics, Withers explained. “An agency can’t judge its success from surveys anymore. They need real-time metrics.”

Although digitization may be just another consideration on a long list of items that agencies must prioritize, it could ultimately reduce the cost of delivering more efficient services. A crucial part of delivering better services is managing current user interactions in real time so that citizens are heard and reflect positively on their experiences.

All of these considerations tie into providing better customer experiences. “If agencies cannot understand the experience being delivered, monitored and tracked, then they really don’t know where to invest for improvements,” Withers said.

The bad experience may be due to a problem on a citizen’s internet browser, or a fault with the agency’s technology.

New Relic’s digital services provide agencies with real-time data metrics that they can use to react and improve any issues their citizens might have. Previously, these agencies relied on surveys and more static means to gauge customer feedback. New Relic is helping agencies understand how all the pieces and parts that are used to deliver a service are interacting together. That means having insights across the service from the citizen to the data, and all the infrastructure components needed to make that happen. To be used instantly for the citizens experience, and at the same time used to find and predict efficiencies.

Withers explained that if you’re a citizen, your experience with the service matters. However, there are many stakeholders, from operations staff to applications owners, involved with creating and maintaining the service. All stakeholders need common insights to their services; and displayed based on their role.

“There are many stakeholders who are affected by this move to digitize,” Withers said. “For example, citizens care most about their experience with a service, while developers are focused on how the code performs and C-level executives are focused on how that software is driving business outcomes. New Relic provides insights based off of data to allow all the different stakeholders to benefit.”