Citizen Engagement Blog

This week, large city and county CIOs and CTOs came together at the Government Technology (GovTech) Digital Communities Large City/County Fly-In hosted by the Washington D.C. CTO, Archana Vemulapalli, and her team. Important and common government priorities being discussed included: IoT governance, identity and security management, government workforce and technology opportunities.

As a technology sponsor of this event, we were invited to join the discussion and learn from technology leaders from some of the top cities and counties in the U.S. As COO at Contact Solutions, a Verint Company, I was privileged to have deeper discussions with many city and county leaders, along with our Operations Analyst, Christina Mero, and offer these timely collective insights. 

Population aging has been called the “silver tsunami,” as cited in the Pew Internet Project’s 2001 “Wired Seniors” report, which was a catalyst early warning sign of things to come. Now, it appears the wave of Baby Boomer retirements from the government is about to hit.

While this retirement juggernaut was originally supposed to crest in 2011, many public sector employees delayed their exit due to the economic effects of the recession. Currently, 2017 is the target year. Are you ready?

With the need for more personalized and secure customer service on the rise, right along with the rise in costs and complexities of managing a contact center, government agencies have to be as smart as possible when contracting and managing technology projects. A dynamic IVR is one way to beat the budget vs. customer experience challenge for public sector customer service. Even Millennials would agree.

In a previous blog post about modernizing state contact centers, we encouraged government agencies to introduce digital engagement opportunities via web, mobile web, and mobile apps as part of their contact center modernization efforts. But that doesn’t mean agencies should dismiss or downplay traditional phone calls. Here’s why:

While the world watches as Donald Trump is inaugurated as the President of the United States, many government administrations and programs wait in limbo. What will this mean for citizen services, state of customer service in the near future, and frankly, your job?  Citizens will always need customer service, and agencies will always need affordable, effective options to solve citizen needs.  Technology modernization is a critical component of that future outlook.

Governing Institute’s new study “Citizen Engagement Modernization in the State Contact Center” examines how the modernization of contact centers can both improve citizen engagement and address operational needs. In Part 1 of this post series, we examined how research results identified methods to improve the citizen experience. Now in Part 2, we discuss how research results identify backend modernization needs  that address outdated technology, inefficient processes, and staffing and operational burdens to improve state worker productivity.

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.

Now, more than ever, health and human services agencies face a variety of challenges in your efforts to protect and enhance the health and well-being of your constituents. You are under pressure to balance resources and demands while executing your services effectively and efficiently.  

A recent Governing Institute study on Citizen Engagement investigated where state agencies stand on contact center modernization to support their citizen engagement efforts.  HHS leaders were strongly represented in the survey results.  Let's take a look at how they're doing... 

To achieve the state of the art in contact centers, government organizations must look beyond the traditional model: reliance on the phone and live agents; on-premises infrastructure; distributed, siloed applications, data sources and security; and cumbersome manual processes.