New research by the esteemed Governing Institute validates that state governments realize the impact outdated technology and inefficient processes have on citizen engagement and operational burdens. In this post, we examine the research findings that answer how modernizing contact centers can improve citizen engagement. Watch the early findings video, read more, and get the Governing Institute infographic.
Contact Solutions recently commissioned the Governing Institute and the Center for Digital Government to survey state government leaders to answer the question about how government agencies are prioritizing modernization of contact center technologies to enhance service delivery, identify focuses, needs and gaps. The study titled “Citizen Engagement Modernization in the State Contact Center” examined current and potential future trends within the contact center technological landscape.
Citizens demand new ways to interact
As Governing Institute research found, government’s traditional methods of engagement cater to the more traditional and costly method of conducting business on the phone with live agents with some additional engagement channels, but realize today’s constituents of all ages and demographics, highly influenced by millennials and the technologically savvy, desire more self-service and digital options.
As the study indicates, modernizing agency contact centers is a critical tool for citizens to get the assistance they need while resolving agency challenges.
Citizens are changing the way they communicate
Governments recognize that:
- Citizens prefer using new mobile communications methods.
- Citizens demand more digital communication options.
- Citizens want more self-service to quickly resolve their issues.
- State contact centers haven’t kept pace.
Even though digital communication is the fastest-growing form of citizen-to-government communication, many of today’s contact centers don’t support popular digital communication channels like, online messaging, mobile apps and social media. The majority of respondents leverage their websites (61%) to engage citizens, but fewer use social media (36%), mobile (22%), text or online messaging (5% and 7%, respectively).
Contact center modernization improvements can strengthen citizen engagement
By understanding – and improving – the citizen experience, governments can inherently resolve some of these pain points.
Modern contact centers can help governments bridge the gap between citizen demand and government need. Contact center modernization provides citizens with the new resources and channels that they are looking for such as self-service tools, online messaging and social media. This allows for governments to provide more streamlined services for constituents and stronger citizen engagement across all communication channels.
In our Part 2 post, we’ll see how research results on modernization addresses government worker needs.
Watch this video for findings highlights, and view the infographic
Read the press release.
