How US government leaders can deliver a better customer experience

Innovation in the private sector is raising customer expectations, and individuals are demanding more from the organizations with which they interact. Research shows that government lags behind the private sector in providing high-quality, end-to-end experiences that satisfy customers. Federal government services rank near or at the bottom in customer experience ratings, with most customers rating their experience as “poor” or “very poor.”¹“American Customer Satisfaction Index: Federal government report 2021,” American Customer Satisfaction Index, January 25, 2022; Eric Egan, “With customer satisfaction at a new low, federal agencies still fail to measure it well or provide enough digital services,” Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, October 24, 2022.

Leaders across government recognize the opportunity to apply best practices to improve delivery of public services to customers, but compared with private entities, public-sector organizations face a unique set of challenges. These include a vast scope of services to be modernized, a variety of stakeholders with different needs and constraints, complex funding and procurement mechanisms, and legacy technologies that may not support current customer experience (CX) goals. In this environment, it can be challenging for government to deliver customer experiences that match the expectations set by leading consumer companies.

In February and March of 2023, we conducted a survey of 30,000 customers to assess their experience with more than 40 high-impact service provider (HISP) commitments and five life experiences prioritized in the 2021 executive order on transforming customer experience in federal agencies.²As defined in Executive Order 14058, HISPs are those federal entities designated by the OMB that provide or fund high-impact customer-facing services, either due to a large customer base or a high impact on those served by the program. The list of HISPs is reviewed and updated periodically by the OMB. The current list of HISPs is available at the performance.gov website. The survey was centered on the core journeys within each service that shape CX; the difficulty of engaging with government services (known as the customer burden or “time tax” for each service); how well HISPs are meeting the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) expectations of good government as being simple, seamless, secure, and equitable; and how these experiences affect customer satisfaction and trust in government. We analyzed the results using advanced statistical modeling to better understand what matters most to customers and how each service performs against those criteria.

The intent of our benchmark research is to create a customer baseline for 2023 performance, as well as enable agencies and HISP leaders to understand and prioritize the changes that could have the greatest impact on improving service delivery. Leaders could gain insights from questions such as the following:

• Solutions. What types of solutions could my agency focus on to improve satisfaction?
• Customer burdens. Which aspects of customer burden (for example, clarity of information and redundancy of forms) should my agency focus on to have the greatest impact?
• Specific pain points. Is it best for my agency to invest in improving a specific journey step or a full end-to-end journey?
• Trust. How does satisfaction correlate with trust in my agency and/or anxiety for those needing services?
• Inclusivity. What are the differences in experience for different groups, particularly underserved communities? How do we ensure an equitable experience?

Our research reveals five key insights:

1. All government services have improved in the past 12 months. Still, a 27-point spread persists between the highest and lowest CX scores, with some services setting the bar for others.
2. Experiences vary across communities. Despite satisfaction improvements, there are still significant inequities for people of color and low-income individuals. This gap doubles for life experiences compared to individual services.
3. Customer experience matters. An increase in customer satisfaction correlates with both increased trust and decreased anxiety with government services.
4. Customer burden has an impact on experience. Finding information, time required to complete tasks, and redundancy of forms all contribute to customer burden.
5. Digital self-service solutions can improve customer experience. While all channels (or ways of engaging) need to work, our survey participants overwhelmingly want easy and comprehensive digital solutions. Six of the most preferred solutions are related to self-service, which digital technologies make much less expensive than call center and in-person service.

Satisfaction with federal services varies widely. The highest score is in line with some private-sector experiences, whereas the lowest ranks below all private-sector and utility experiences. Of note, satisfaction with the US federal government overall ranks lower than the lowest-rated federal service.

Using OMB Circular A-11, section 280 definitions, we evaluated satisfaction differences across categories of government services that were similar for the customer journey. The complexity of finding information on a government website (informational category) is different from filing taxes (compliance) or applying for disability benefits (benefits). Customers report the lowest satisfaction with services that fall into the benefits or compliance categories and with life experiences—experiences that touch multiple agencies, such as recovering from a disaster or experiencing a financial shock. A full list of government services can be found in the appendix at the end of this article.

Satisfaction is improving for all service commitments, but there is wide variation in the degree of improvement. All services exhibit room for continued improvement both to meet customer expectations and needs and to deliver effectively on agency objectives.

Five services grew their customer satisfaction scores by more than 20 percentage points over the past 12 months. While all services saw an improvement in their customer satisfaction scores, two services improved by five percentage points or less.

Despite the top-line improvements for satisfaction, the experiences of different groups show inequities. Non-White, younger, and lower-income individuals have a worse experience across both specific services and life experiences.

Life experiences are significantly more challenging for underserved groups, and much more difficult than individual services for those aged 41–60.

Increased satisfaction directly contributes to trust in government, with a one-percentage-point improvement correlating with a two-percentage-point increase in trust.

When looking at anxiety caused by a service or life experience, higher satisfaction correlates with lower reported anxiety.

As agencies continue to improve their services and life experiences, it is important to know where to focus. For nearly all services, difficulty finding information and clarity of communication are the primary drivers of customer burden—a contributing factor to lower satisfaction and a focus of the executive order. This underscores the importance of understanding customers and providing clear, understandable language to help them successfully complete their tasks. Completing tasks on their own and using their preferred channel were also significant contributors to customer burden.

Longer wait times to receive benefits, specifically beyond one month, significantly impact customer satisfaction.

While many agencies are focused on increasing staff levels at call centers and field offices, customers overwhelmingly prefer self-service digital solutions. This preference underscores the extent of the digital interactions that customers have while engaging with private-sector companies and the opportunity to invest in lower cost-to-serve solutions that scale to meet customer demand. These solutions, in turn, will lower demand for higher-touch channels such as call centers and field offices, potentially minimizing the large need for hiring and training of new staff.

Satisfaction and other metrics also varied across life experiences. Those who were approaching retirement were more satisfied and found their expectations of good government met at a higher rate than other life experiences. Conversely, those who faced a financial shock were the least satisfied and found that expectations were not met.

For cross-agency life experiences, it can be difficult to identify where to start and how to focus efforts to see maximum impact. Finding information and clarity of communication drive customer burden for many life experiences. Additionally, redundancy in filling out the same information in multiple places drives customer burden for both the military to civilian transition and the approaching retirement experiences. The ability to complete tasks on one’s own was also a significant driver of customer burden.

Each life experience was evaluated by survey respondents to determine whether customer expectations of simple, seamless, secure, and equitable government were met. Life experiences had significant variance, but certain life experiences (for example, approaching retirement) scored better across most expectations than others. Across all life experiences, the seamless and equitable expectations scored lowest.

For each life experience, respondents were asked which services they interacted with within that experience. For each service, respondents were asked their satisfaction at each of the four main stages of the customer journey. Three archetypes emerged. The first, as shown in the approaching retirement journey, occurred when a single service’s end-to-end journey fell below the rest.

The military to civilian transition also fell into this archetype. For these life experiences, focusing on the end-to-end journey redesign for one or two specific services can create the most impact early.

For other life experiences, a specific step in the journey dipped across all services. For the life experience of recovering from a disaster, the “apply” step across all journeys led to a dip in satisfaction.

Those facing a financial shock also saw a dip in satisfaction during the apply step. For these life experiences, agencies could have the most impact by addressing that specific step across multiple services.

The third and final archetype is a combination of the first two. For those who experienced having a child while living in a low-income household, there was both a service that fell below the rest and a step in the journey for many services (checking application status) that saw a satisfaction dip. For this life experience, one agency could focus on the end-to-end journey redesign while others may want to focus specifically on the checking application status step.

Like satisfaction, customers also indicated varying levels of burden, anxiety caused, and expectations of good government being met. Within the benefits category of services, customers indicated that while it wasn’t necessarily difficult to apply for most benefits, most did not meet expectations of good government. For informational services, customers indicated that services were challenging to navigate and that they did not meet expectations.

While compliance, administrative, and regulatory services were not perceived as difficult to navigate, customers did not feel services were simple, seamless, secure, or equitable for the most part. Recreational services are least burdensome and cause the least amount of anxiety.

Survey respondent demographics reflect the population as defined by the US Census Bureau, meaning the number of respondents for each service can be used as a proxy for overall utilization by demographic. Non-White respondents were less satisfied than White respondents despite having a higher utilization rate of services.

Those who live in households with an annual income of more than $200,000 were the most satisfied of any demographic. Those living in households that make less than $50,000, however, were much less satisfied despite using services at a rate two to three times higher than those with a household income greater than $200,000.

Respondents were also asked their satisfaction with each individual stage of the customer journey. Agencies fell into two different archetypes depending on how their services plotted on the journey map. These archetypes can help an agency determine where to focus efforts. The first, as represented in the chart above, is to focus on a singular journey step across multiple services. This agency saw a dip in satisfaction at the “check status” step for all services. The second, as represented in the chart above, is to focus on an end-to-end journey redesign for a specific service that sees lower satisfaction across all journey steps.