Public-sector organizations around the world have made significant progress in improving interactions with their citizen customers by modernizing their infrastructure and digitally transforming the services they deliver. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of a consistent, personalized and resilient digital citizen experience. Join me at this year’s OpenText™ World Europe to hear from government agencies about how their digital journeys are changing their relationships with the people they serve.
The digital citizen experience is front and center
Long before the pandemic, Accenture research found that 85 percent of citizens expect the same or a higher standard of quality from government services, compared to their expectations for commercial organizations. More recently, the consulting firm found that citizens increasingly look to government to assist them in their lives. Overall, 70 percent said they wanted help planning their future, and two-thirds said they wanted government to help them feel secure.
One key for Accenture respondents was the use of digital technologies to drive service performance, efficiency and innovation. If government organizations were previously making slow but steady progress toward digital customer experience, the pandemic has added rocket fuel.
For example, Canada, where OpenText is headquartered, moved quickly to adopt a “digital-first” mindset—backed by concrete funding, timelines and the rollout of digital-first services at all levels of government. This was in response to citizen demand, where three in four Canadians are looking to digital services as the country emerges from the pandemic.
The challenge facing the public sector resembles a perfect storm. Every organization has to maintain its mission to provide services, keep its citizens safe and promote the economic wellbeing of its community. At the same time, agencies face rising citizen expectations and severely constricted budgets. Bloomberg reports that US cities alone expect to face a $360 billion budget shortfall from 2020 through 2022.
With not a penny to waste, public-sector organizations must create services that are effective, relevant and targeted to citizen groups and individuals. Continuing to fulfill this mission means embracing the cloud and digital technologies—as well as organizational and cultural change—to incorporate new ways of working and citizen engagement.
Data drives the digital customer experience
At the core of digital customer experience is data. Public-sector organizations have to find ways to use the data available to them more intelligently. This allows them to craft better services and deliver efficient, omnichannel engagements cost-effectively. They need to be able to share their data across the agency and beyond to connect and collaborate with other public-sector organizations, commercial companies and academic partners.
Properly exploiting data allows government to build a view of each citizen. This helps them to simplify complex and often outdated processes, as well as to deliver more personal and targeted citizen services. Better use of data is the basis for increased automation that improves service performance and frees employees to undertake higher-value activities. More than this, it offers the potential to radically evolve service delivery models so citizens can take greater control and self-manage their interactions with public-sector organizations.
Unlocking the government experience algorithm
At this year’s OpenText World Europe, we’ve assembled an amazing panel of speakers, all digital government leaders from public-sector organizations across the EMEA region.
During the session titled “Unlocking the government experience algorithm,” our panel will talk about their digital journeys and how they have succeeded in areas such as:
- Speeding up the digital transformation process
- Managing and mining data from citizen interactions to improve service
- Deploying automation to improve the citizen experience
- Modernizing their infrastructure and integrating siloed services through digital platforms
OpenText World Europe takes place online April 14–15, 2021, and is free of charge. Book your place today by registering here.
To learn more about how OpenText is helping public-sector organizations digitally transform to meet citizen needs, visit our website.
