5 Steps to Digitalization in the Public Sector

„Customer Service in the Public Sector“? – What Comes to Mind?

Long lines at the vehicle registration office? Endless phone loops? Or perhaps simply filing your tax return?

Every day, millions of transactions take place worldwide across local, regional, and national public administrations, with varying quality in customer or citizen service. Some agencies, such as the Swedish Public Employment Service or the U.S. Census Bureau, already offer straightforward citizen services via mobile devices and modern applications today.

The German government also adopted its „Digital Administration 2020“ program back in 2014. But we are still far from reaching that goal. The media in particular voiced massive criticism that – especially during the pandemic – public health offices were still working primarily with phone and fax

Private-Sector Standards Reach Public Institutions Too

The shift toward better customer service in public administrations is being driven by citizens‘ steadily rising expectations. Private companies such as Amazon have already made simple, intuitive, and transparent interactions the standard for customer service.

They orient themselves around the customer and their customer journey – not around internal guidelines or outdated procedures. Interactions are dynamic and follow user behavior. Information is simple and accessible everywhere. Mobile devices are being used more and more, and citizens expect public authorities to be reachable (also) through this channel.

So far, German public administrations have often lacked the technology, the funding, and frequently even the authority’s own willingness to change fundamentally. At first glance, digitalization in the public sector often seems like a massive undertaking. But today there are both approaches and technologies that enable a step-by-step process, delivering benefits and efficiency gains very quickly.

Putting the Citizen at the Center

Whether an authority is already in the middle of modernization or has not yet begun its digital transformation, it is capable of offering customer-oriented service and creating outstanding citizen service with an agile platform. This leads to continuous improvements in accessibility, reliability, timeliness, and accuracy.

A Step-by-Step Approach to E-Government

Start with your most urgent needs, then close the gaps between legacy systems and current applications to provide citizens with a seamless service:

• First define the customer journeys required for your workflows: What is the end-to-end process for handling any type of request, from intake to resolution? What needs to happen from a back-office perspective, and what should the citizen see?

• Build from the inside out: Once you have defined your customer journeys, you can deploy them across all channels while a platform manages technical access to data and services in the background. This ensures accuracy and consistency across all your procedures and policies, regardless of which channels (phone, mobile, chat, website, social media, etc.) are used to handle the customer journeys.

• Offer always-on availability: Rely on „mobile-first,“ but not „mobile-only.“ Phone, email, and traditional mail remain important, but outside regular service hours, easily accessible self-service channels give citizens a simple way to get in touch with you.

• Use cloud systems to connect data from all your channels: Take advantage of the benefits to securely gather customer data from all your applications and technologies and enable seamless data flow.

• Use „case management“ and intelligent guidance for greater transparency and stability: A case – or business event – refers to the steps needed to achieve a goal (e.g., applying for, approving, and paying out a benefit). Case management organizes all the actions needed to complete a customer journey and optimizes the outcomes. It also gives employees and citizens a direct overview of every single step and thereby promotes transparency. Combining case management with a tool such as artificial intelligence even makes it possible to anticipate future needs and proactively engage with citizens.

Read here what the implementation of an intelligent platform achieves in practice, using the example of the Bavarian State Ministry.

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