The Biden administration is focused on the next wave of customer experience projects, giving agencies new targets and soon new We also provide tools.
The Office of Management and Budget announced Wednesday in the latest update to the President's Management Plan that agencies are working on strategies to make it easier to hire customer experience professionals across government.
OMB is also adding new areas of focus to its list of cross-agency “life experiences,” aimed at improving how agencies deliver public services across a vast network of government websites. We are also working on future guidance.
More broadly, the Biden administration recently issued additional guidance on how to measure improvements in customer experience across the federal government and directed agencies to focus on rebuilding public trust in government services.
The Biden administration's Interagency Customer Experience Team, led by the General Services Administration, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Veterans Affairs, found that 26 of the 35 agencies designed as high-impact service providers (HISPs) currently make customer experience data publicly available. He said he was reporting to.
“Today's update includes steps HISP has taken to strengthen service delivery, which in turn is an effort to build trust directly with the American people,” the implementation team said in a blog post.
OMB said in its latest PMA update that it will work with GSA to develop a talent acquisition guide aimed at making it easier for agencies to hire customer experience talent across the government.
OMB plans to release a CX Talent Acquisition Guide by the third quarter of fiscal year 2024.
The upcoming talent acquisition guide relates to some of the federal workforce priorities outlined in the Biden administration's fiscal year 2024 budget request.
The administration's fiscal year 2024 budget request calls for hiring 120 additional customer experience professionals across the federal government.
The budget request also envisioned creating 26 “talent teams” across the federal workforce. These teams will make skills-based assessments and collaborative recruitment efforts a more common practice across federal hiring.
The agency previously piloted the Subject Matter Expert Qualification Assessment (SME-QA) to hire customer experience experts.
Better disaster recovery, Medicare enrollment experience
OMB is also adding two new areas focused on customer experience to its list of “life experiences” across agencies.
President Joe Biden's December 2021 Customer Experience Executive Order outlined five life experiences as high priority areas for improvement, but these areas only fall within the purview of a single federal agency. It's not a thing.
Based on the latest PMA update, OMB is directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to work with the Small Business Administration to streamline federal disaster assistance.
Both organizations will establish a cross-team task force to address the backlog of shared projects that require CX review. The agency will also focus on improving online messaging for FEMA acceptance applications and SBA loan programs, as well as revamping call center scripts.
OMB specifically directed FEMA to analyze data on applicants seeking to enroll in the agency's Individual Assistance Program and directed SBA to review data from its Disaster Loan Program.
The Biden administration is prioritizing customer experience in federal disaster relief as bipartisan legislation moves through Congress.
On July 27, the Senate passed the Disaster Assistance Simplification Act, which would require FEMA to create a common application form across federal agencies for individuals seeking federal assistance after a natural disaster. The bill now heads to a vote in the House of Representatives.
Currently, applicants must complete separate detailed application forms depending on the institution they require assistance with. The bill's co-sponsors include Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Ranking Member Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Committee Member James Lankford. (R-Okla.) said the application process could take several weeks. Or even months.
The Biden administration will also require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Social Security Administration to improve the Medicare enrollment process for people who are not eligible for SSA benefits or who are not ready to retire and receive SSA benefits. I'm asking you to rationalize it.
CMS already automatically enrolls individuals in Medicare Parts A and B who already receive Social Security retirement or disability benefits.
OMB announced that CMS and SSA will conduct user research on the Medicare-only end-to-end enrollment experience and areas for improvement.
Improving government services online
The Biden administration is also asking government agencies to rethink how they deliver public services online.
OMB plans to issue additional guidance regarding implementation of the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience (IDEA) Act in early September. The law, signed in December 2018, directs agencies to modernize their services with a focus on improving the customer experience.
OMB is also encouraging agencies to apply for funding from the Technology Modernization Fund to meet some of the new goals.
GSA also plans to update Search.gov with “smart filters” to help the public track benefits and services across the government, according to the latest update to Performance.gov.
The Biden administration is also collecting feedback on how satisfied federal employees are with internal government services.
In the PMA's update on Improving the Work of Government, OMB collected feedback from more than 270,000 federal employees across 24 government agencies. The survey asks federal employees about their overall satisfaction with human capital, contracting, financial management, and IT services provided internally by the federal government.
Rebuild public trust and gain customer feedback
In a recent update to its CircularA-11 memo, OMB encourages agencies to better understand their customers through feedback and focus group user testing. This memo is intended to make agencies aware of government-wide priorities as part of the annual budget process.
The updated memo now requires HISPs to conduct at least one customer feedback survey for each designated service.
“HISPs must work with OMB to determine the most relevant and appropriate post-transaction customer feedback opportunities for a given service and provide data that will enable continued delivery and improvement of the service. Yes,” the updated note states.
The A-11 update also provides updated guidance regarding whether agents can offer incentives when soliciting customer feedback.
Lee Becker, former chief of staff for the Office of Veterans' Experience and current vice president and executive advisor for public sector and health care at Medallia, said the A-11 update is a response to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs' recent policy cuts. He said this reflected his focus. A “time tax” for individuals to find and use government services.
“It used to be very complicated,” Becker said of the agency's process for obtaining customer feedback, which is constrained by the Red tape Reduction Act, which requires agencies to undertake certain information-gathering activities approved by OIRA. Told. “It’s now even easier for agencies to collect feedback, which is great.”
The A-11 update also directs agencies to prioritize “drivers of trust” across government services.
Becker said the Veterans Administration is showing progress on customer experience goals by measuring and prioritizing veterans' trust scores, and OMB points to the VA as a case study.
VA had a veteran trust score of about 55% in 2016, and now the veteran trust score is nearly 80%. Veterans give VA health care nearly 90% confidence scores in the VA's latest scorecard.
“VA has shown how they are making a difference, primarily by focusing on trust and all the drivers of the experience that create trust. They are fully committed to this,” Becker said. said. “We've seen progress there, and OMB is finally saying, 'This is something that every agency should be working on as well.'”
Becker said OMB's latest CX priorities (reflected in the PMA and A-11 updates) mean that while some agencies are making improving the customer experience a priority, others are He said this highlights the reality that there is a lack of funding and resources.
“We're seeing certain agencies really lean into this and it's becoming part of their culture, organization and how they operate. “We're having a hard time getting into the market,” Becker said. “Some of these agencies think it’s too difficult. They have so many other priorities and don’t understand that CX is literally fundamental to how they operate.”
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