Know When Engagement Matters (and Doesn’t)
Agencies develop many digital tools for constituent engagement, but sometimes the best response is…silence. Is it better to hear complaints about a city’s garbage pickup or hear no complaints at all?
According to Summer Xiao, Deputy CIO in Houston’s Project Management Office, “The public actually doesn’t want to engage with you.”
When it comes to service delivery, agencies should “engineer to zero” — in other words, get their services working so well that people don’t need to reach out, Xiao said.
Other circumstances call for silent engagement. That’s when you measure public sentiment on an issue by monitoring news, social media and other public forums.
And when governments truly need feedback on topics such as capital planning or local development, Xiao believes in public engagement and giving residents tools to weigh in.
“There may be an assumed understanding that more is better,” she said. “How do we get people more excited about engaging…? How do we get more feedback? How do we get more constituent [voices]?”
But sometimes, less is just what’s needed.
Take Surveys Seriously
Consumer surveys are opportunities for self-reflection, an agency’s chance to improve after exploring constituents’ feelings, experiences and beliefs — but that assumes the questions are meaningful and that people answer them.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) takes surveys seriously. Through its Veteran Signals, or VSignals, program the agency identifies people who have engaged in VA services and programs, including health care, over a two-week period.
VSignals then emails surveys to a statistically representative subset of that group and sends reminder emails a week later to people who haven’t responded.
The answers are available in real time, and dashboards with advanced filters and analytic capabilities help VA staff identify areas of success and struggle.
The system looks at CX drivers such as employee helpfulness, ease and simplicity, and equity; it can analyze response data based on geographical location, type of service, demographics and other concerns.
VSignals also uses algorithms that capture what the VA considers actionable responses, including potential suicide risks, and directs those respondents to appropriate caseworkers.
Launched in 2017, the system has received feedback from more than 10 million veterans.
Evan Albert, the VA’s Director of Measurement and Data Analytics, explained that “the more data [and] context you can layer on, the more you’re able to explain to leadership…what the results truly mean. Otherwise, it’s just data on customer experience, but it’s not data that’s interpretable and meaningful.”
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