Ep. 27 Using Technology to Build Trust in the Federal Government

We are living in challenging times; citizen trust is waning.

Pew Research has a great quote about citizen trust “Only two-in-ten say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always.”

COVID has forced citizens to try to get information from the federal government about health issues, financial support, and taxes. Just recently, there was a drastic increase in citizens seeking information about federally backed loans. However, when it comes to citizens looking for information we can list FEMA, air travel, Social Security, and even small business loans as candidates for improved service.

The Biden Administration realized that many were getting frustrated with federal online services and issued an Executive Order (EO) in December of 2021 that gave a thorough list of ways to improve online services. These were thirty-six customer experience commitments spread among seventeen agencies.

The EO hits on subjects like consistency, self-service, secure identification, navigation, and even responsive assistance.

During this interview, Brian Chidester from Genesys provides ideas on how to improve customer service. He devolves into un-government-like topics like Return on Investment and having empathy with the needs of citizens. He suggests that there are systems that can leverage artificial intelligence to take predictive analytics to a new level.

For example, if you are contacting a call center, some systems can route your call to the best person who can manage your issue based on many factors.

Brian Chidester gives an overview of automation that can improve case status tracking and provide citizens information in the context of a secure federal system.