What Good Shall We Do Today?
In December 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 14058 into existence and there was much rejoicing. But now what?
Presidents sign executive orders (EOs) all the time to direct federal agencies and government officials to take action, with the full force of the law behind the request. In the case of EO 14058 — “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government” — the direction is to try and make our experience better when we interact with the government.
This EO provides guidance, defines what “good” looks like, and — most importantly — unlocks a path to funding so agencies can deliver better outcomes to constituents. To people. To me, you, our families, our neighbors, and soon-to-be neighbors.
This customer experience (CX) EO codifies terms and sets expectations that align with Slalom’s mission to dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Thankfully, we’re not alone in that goal — when we work with our federal customers, we tap into our network of like-minded partners to design, develop, and deliver modern, stable, secure, and scalable human-centered solutions.
The federal government’s addressable market is everyone, and vendors can’t go it alone in a homogeneous silo or else we miss out on the diversity of thought, representation, and unique skill sets that folks bring to the table. So, when the President issues an EO that asserts “Strengthening the democratic process requires providing direct lines of feedback and mechanisms for engaging the American people in the design and improvement of federal government programs, processes, and services,” we know we have years of hard work ahead of us — and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
What stands between a veteran and the medical care they earned with their service? Or a farmer and the need to hire workers legally within a short window of time so their crops don’t die in the fields? Typically, federal systems and processes that are often inefficient, antiquated, convoluted, and beyond frustrating. We can fix these systems and processes (over time) by combining empathy, understanding, and a fiercely human approach to modern technology development and deployment practices.
The CX EO finally elevates customer outcomes to the forefront of the conversation surrounding how taxpayer dollars are spent. Procurement officers — people who hold the keys to who does business with an agency, what they do, and how they do it — now have a directive to ensure customer experience methodologies are first-class citizens in any technology transformation procurement. It’s on us to hold up our end of the bargain and listen to, design for, and deliver to the diverse socioeconomic groups the government serves.
For some, that process may seem like table stakes, but too often that crucial time spent with real users has been the first scope cut out of a procurement, or not even included in the first place. For too long, government systems have been built and deployed from business requirements developed in a vacuum and thrown over the wall to vendors for blind implementation with the hope that everything will come together at the end and be magically usable by everyone so that positive outcomes can be had by all.
Spoiler alert: That never works.
Take action, but don’t reinvent the wheel
Now we have an EO that we can wave around and say, “Look here! We can put CX at the forefront of our projects and not argue about whether or not we should even do it in the first place!” We are required to take into consideration every individual’s lived experience, which in turn allows us to focus on providing solutions based on peoples’ real-life problems.
Folks just want to know answers to questions like, “How do I get unemployment benefits?” Or “How do I tap into the veteran benefits I’ve earned?” Or “How do I file for student aid?” They shouldn’t have to sift through government websites trying to figure out which agency offers the service they need right now.
Focusing on CX aligns the expectations 21st Century constituents have for interacting with systems that provide the benefits they deserve. This includes consistency in interactions across agencies, getting service at the point of need through omnichannel methods (both synchronous and asynchronous), case-status tracking, one-time secure identity verification, and more. No one should have to maintain a sticky note of passwords for seven different systems that provide a single benefit they need to survive.
We can do better. We have been doing better. But there’s so much more to do.
I’ve been excited about this EO since the minute it was released because it opens doors and codifies some important values, such as delivering outcomes. But I also know my history, and my enthusiasm wanes when I remember that EO 14058 is not the first to try to tackle this problem. A few others over the last 30 years have tried to provide guidance for improving government services, such as EO 12862 in 1993 — “Setting Customer Service Standards” — which required agencies to establish service standards and measure performance. But just “have standards and measure them” didn’t provide any incentive to change or do anything about the results. EO 13571 in 2011, “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” required agencies to develop a customer service plan. However, committing to use Google Analytics to track something without knowing what that something is doesn’t exactly amount to a plan.
The release of EO 13707 in 2015 — “Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People” — brought AI and ML into the mix, with a directive to “use empirical findings to deliver better results for the American people, including by identifying opportunities to help qualifying individuals, families, communities, and businesses access public programs and benefits.”
Wait a second — that’s actually not a bad application of automation technology!
Maybe there’s something to it? Something like, “If you’re eligible for Medicaid, you’re also eligible for SNAP and several other social safety net benefits, so let’s proactively in enroll you in both?” Since those are currently two separate application processes, what if we share data or adjudication — something, anything — to get benefits more efficiently into the hands of those who need them the most?
It’s an exciting prospect. But that’s where the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988 starts to rear its ugly head, which in some cases precludes data from being shared in useful ways. But the goal is good: let computers do computer things so people can do people things.
Drive toward real outcomes
The CX EO expands on these well-meaning EOs of the past by building on the work of career civil servants who have stood up and said enough is enough — the government has spent all this money on contracts that don’t have outcomes written into them, let alone outcomes that are measurable or that consider the voice of the customer. Contracts should include success and failure criteria and shouldn’t reward the incumbent just for keeping people in seats, but rather for delivering positive outcomes for people.
The CX EO makes me hopeful because it codifies terms that practitioners have been trying to use in government for the last several years…to slow but increasing success:
- Customer experience — It matters how customers view their interactions with the government.
- Customer life experience — This includes the important points in a person’s life when they interact with the government — life events or other moments that matter
- Human-centered design — The interdisciplinary methodology of recognizing that people are at the core of any process and elevating their experiences and pain points.
- Service delivery — Those actions taken on the Government side to deliver a benefit or service, which are often intertwined with legacy technology and reams of paper.
The CX EO provides language to program and procurement officers for what they should want to procure, what they should require from vendors, and what to look for in proposals, code challenges, and technical demonstrations as they make their vendor selections. This shared understanding of basic requirements for a successful human-centered digital services delivery project will result in better outcomes.
It’s dangerous to go alone — take this EO
What does all this mean to Slalom and our partners as we navigate this long journey of helping the government deliver better outcomes to people in need? We need to tackle opportunities that make a difference to an addressable market of everyone.
There is a line in the CX EO that has been the dream for years: “The federal government’s management of its customer experience and service delivery should be driven fundamentally by the voice of the customer through human-centered design methodologies; empirical customer research; an understanding of behavioral science and user testing, especially for digital services; and other mechanisms of engagement.”
That’s it, right there — that’s the dream: Driven by the voice of the customer.
Slalom has an entire Experience Design (XD) practice that ensures our work is driven by the voice of the customer — not just the loudest voice in the room. We need to bundle our empathetic people, skilled technologists, industry partners, and platform partners for rapid innovation to change the world for the better. Or at least change tiny pieces incrementally that will make a difference in someone’s life. I’d be good with that, too.
Successful outcomes all come down to listening, empathizing, architecting, and delivering solutions that solve a problem. That process is now codified in an executive order.
But…
- Are we pushing for RFPs and SOWs to include CX activities and outcomes as first-class citizens?
- Are we building in the voice of the user from day one?
- Are we refusing to settle for undefined success criteria?
- Are we holding the bar high to ensure the best service and delivery for that total addressable market of everyone?
- Are agencies refusing to pay for work that doesn’t meet the standards set for positive CX outcomes?
If not, we’re headed for more of the same sub-optimal systems and frustrated users for another generation or longer — and that’s just not good enough.
Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Learn more and reach out today.
