[LINK] Oz Govt Falling Behind in Delivery of Customer Services

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
More on the report at
http://www.accenture.com/Global/Services/By_Industry/Government/R_and_I/DeliveringonthePromise.htm
</brd>

Australian Government Falling Behind in Delivery of Customer Services
Sue Bushell 26 July, 2007 10:12:36
CIO Magazine
http://www.cio.com.au/index.php/id;1338834733;fp;4;fpid;21

Once they were top performers, praised for their strong visions of 
value-led, citizen-centric services, but somehow Australia, Canada, 
France, the United Kingdom and the United States have all let service 
flag in the eyes of their citizens.

Now Accenture is warning those nations against losing momentum, 
concerned they may be becoming stymied by their own success and tempted 
to dawdle on transitioning from the winning recipes of the past.

"The work ahead is not easy. Nor will it have the immediate and visceral 
appeal of the high-profile work governments have done on their front-end 
service structures in the recent past. Nevertheless, it is work that can 
no longer be pushed to the bottom of the customer service agenda. 
Citizens impatiently await the results," a new Accenture report warns.

The report, Leadership in Customer Service: Delivering on the Promise, 
the eighth in an annual series examining the customer-service 
challenges, maturity and practices of governments around the world, 
ranks 22 governments based on an assessment of their customer-service 
programs, but this time with a major enhancement. For the first time, 
the rankings incorporate direct citizen feedback on quality of 
government service delivery, based on criteria like the 
user-friendliness of customer-service channels, the breadth and depth of 
online services accessed by citizens, and overall citizen satisfaction 
ratings.

And on this measure, governments that used to pride themselves on 
leadership are looking somewhat less flash. Accenture now considers the 
governments of Singapore (scoring 89 percent on customer maturity 
ranking) and Canada (88 percent) - both with strong and compelling 
visions of value-led, citizen-centric service - as doing the best job of 
delivering on the promise of customer service. The United States has 
fallen back to the second tier (79 percent), where it joins Denmark (79 
percent), and Sweden (74 percent), who rose over their previous rankings.

While the introduction of citizen survey responses make comparisons with 
past years difficult, Australia's ranking looks far less impressive this 
year - on just 59 percent - where it is easily pipped by Norway, (64 
percent), and Finland (62 percent.).

In some of the strongest performing countries from past reports, 
including Australia, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the United 
States, citizens are still generally satisfied, but don't believe 
service has improved in comparison to three years ago, the report finds.

"What will it take to move citizens beyond complacency in these 
countries? What will it take to reverse citizen disenchantment, or to 
maintain the positive momentum in others? In short, what will it take 
for governments to continue to build the trust with their citizens?

"It will take putting a robust vision of customer service into action. 
Governments have promised the world to citizens. They have talked about 
removing organizational boundaries and providing highly tailored service 
based on a deep understanding of who their citizens are-as individuals 
and as members of communities. In the end, however, citizens will judge 
their governments by their actions rather than their promises. And 
governments still have much work to do to be able to keep their word."

The report also concludes that combining excellent front-end customer 
service with a robust technology infrastructure and highly trained 
workforce is what allows leading governments to deliver better service 
to citizens. "Our report found that while many countries have embraced 
new technologies - especially the Internet - to reach citizens, their 
back-end infrastructures have often failed to keep pace. The most 
innovative customer-service platforms are the most holistic in tying 
together the front-end promise with back-end delivery excellence," 
Roberts said.

This holistic approach underlies the four key findings in Delivering on 
the Promise derived from in-depth surveys and research of government 
customer service. The key findings include:

Know the customer's needs. Innovative governments are moving beyond 
basic demographic categories and looking at customers as groups based on 
characteristics that include their values, needs and intentions. For 
example, the Central Provident Fund in Singapore wanted to educate young 
people about the benefits of retirement savings. The Fund took what they 
knew of their targets' attitudes and behaviours and combined that with 
effective marketing techniques garnered from the private sector to 
provide a truly novel educational experience that includes an online 
game and prizes. The game is designed to encourage good savings and 
investment habits, as well as long-term financial planning.

Make the connections. Organizations whose back-office infrastructures 
are not aligned to fulfil their citizen-service promises create a 
credibility and delivery gap. While governments understand that their 
visions of customer service will evolve over time, they are now focusing 
more attention on making their existing visions operational through 
infrastructure improvements. Spain is becoming a model for other 
European countries in this regard, creating a national platform for 
information sharing and communication through the development of a 
common infrastructure that links all the state administrations with 
regional governments.

Align your people. Developing the best, most well-equipped front-line 
workforce is critical to customer-service success because those 
employees can have the biggest impact. Innovative governments are 
attacking this issue in one of two ways: ramping up their workforces 
through extensive training and recruitment, or opting for smaller 
numbers of highly engaged people. Canada's approach to managing its 
workforce is particularly effective, with a robust strategy for 
workforce transformation called PS Renewal, in which service 
transformation and public service renewal initiatives are tightly coupled.

Don't do it alone. Governments' relationships with citizens, businesses 
and non-governmental organizations are evolving into a complex ecosystem 
in which each of the various stakeholders takes on a share of the 
responsibility for developing and delivering value-led services. This 
evolution is leading to the next generation of highly integrated 
customer service.

"This is a call to action for governments. We found that the four 
pillars of customer service are related to citizens' overall 
satisfaction . . . In other words, a significant aspect of governments' 
relationships with citizens is directly under their own control: how 
they provide services," the report says.

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au