Government agencies have a lot riding on improving their constituents’ customer experience (CX), and they understand the consequences. That’s why the White House made CX a federal priority starting with an Executive Order issued in 2021, which recognized that every public interaction with government is an opportunity to build or lose trust, and why state CIOs have ranked CX a top priority every year since then.
Many public-sector efforts have focused on improving the online experience, as websites are now the primary method of interacting with government. A study by McKinsey found that 60% of people nationwide have a strong preference for dealing with government via digital channels, as opposed to by phone (30%) or in person (27%). And people expect the kind of responsive, seamless digital services they find in the commercial world.
Improving online CX depends on improving the performance of software applications. And that depends on whether agencies use automated software testing (AST), particularly in the fast-paced, complex hybrid cloud environments where agencies increasingly operate.
The Limits of Manual Testing
Many organizations still rely primarily on manual testing. Although manual testing is necessary in some situations, such as when precise knowledge of a specific function is important, it doesn’t scale to meet the number and variety of applications in agencies’ growing lists of initiatives. And it prevents employees from resolving pain points as efficiently as possible and enjoying a more satisfying work experience.
A manual approach is slower than automation and unlikely to find errors as quickly. For example, agencies must continually update both their cloud and on-premises software in order to modernize enterprise applications that are integrated throughout the agency’s environment. However, any update is capable of introducing an error or lost connection, which means that testing software and remediating problems in that environment requires a speed beyond the capabilities of a manual approach.
In other circumstances, manual testing teams may face unfamiliar new application breeds or be overwhelmed by DevOps teams’ fast development and deployment of software. In either case, a manual approach struggles to keep up with software deployment.
The Benefits of End-to-End Automated Testing
An integrated, low-code automated testing platform can help agencies provide superior CX by improving software performance throughout the enterprise, without sacrificing employee talent. A comprehensive solution can test software running on mainframes and on-premises systems as well as cloud applications and services, web and mobile apps, and APIs. It should shorten the time required to test software and find and remediate problems, providing a 10-fold reduction in test cycles.
Organizations are already realizing the advantages of automated testing. A Department of Defense agency applied automated testing to a large enterprise application that provides essential services throughout the department. The agency reduced its software testing time from an average of three weeks to a matter of hours. The agency has since expanded the use of its testing tool, and that has freed IT staff to work on projects directly supporting warfighters.
Automated testing supports DevOps teams in the fast development and delivery of updates, changes and new services. In addition, an automated testing platform can employ AI-powered analytics to check updates to large, complex enterprise applications — reducing the risks of consequential errors while significantly shortening the time and costs involved in supporting those applications.
And by integrating low-code automated testing into development lifecycles, organizations can quickly and consistently identify problems that put applications at risk.
Once implemented, a low-code automated platform can take more of the burden off testing teams because it allows non-technical people to initiate tests, whether they involve cloud workloads or applications run by teams in the field.
A Factor in Rebuilding Trust
Application testing is not just an IT issue: Agencies must strengthen the trust people have in government by improving the quality of services they provide. In fact, one in three respondents to a Salesforce survey said that trust affects their willingness to share personal information with government. And a Deloitte survey found that although 70% of federal managers felt their agencies’ CX was on par with the private sector’s, citizens ranked the government 10th among industries surveyed, more than a dozen points below the highest score.
For many applications — including those constituents interact with — low-code automated testing is the fastest, most efficient and most effective way to improve software performance. It quickly finds and remediates problems, making it a critical tool to improve government’s relationship with the public.
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