Learn About the Updated IT Accessibility Standards
Effective January 18, 2018, the revised 508 standards modernize the federal government’s IT accessibility standards and bring us into alignment with governments around the world.
Rachel Flagg
Creating a Culture of Engagement – Webinar Recap
Employee engagement, evidenced by displays of dedication, persistence, effort and overall attachment to organization and mission, is a key factor in business success, but it can be a struggle for government organizations. Organizational leaders seeking to cultivate a culture of engagement need tangible examples of how to successfully move the needle in a positive direction.
Case Study: OCSIT’s Email Customer Survey Process
At GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies (OCSIT), we offer technology services and tools to make government work better. To help us gauge the effectiveness of the programs we offer to other government agencies, in 2013 we launched our first Government Customer Experience Index (GCXi) survey. This annual email survey consistently measures customer
Customer Experience Toolkit
Customer Experience (CX) is defined as the sum of all experiences a customer has with your organization. Since government is often a sole-source service provider (e.g., there’s only one place to pay taxes, or get a driver’s license), CX is even more important in the public sector than in other organizations. If that’s not enough
Government Customer Service Policies & Requirements: 1993 to Present
May 2016—GAO Report GAO-16-509 March 2016—OMB Memo M-16-08 Establishment of the Core Federal Services Council 6/15/2017: Eliminated by M-17-26, Reducing Burden for Federal Agencies by Rescinding and Modifying OMB Memoranda (PDF, 208KB, 12 pages, June 2017) October 2014—GAO Report GAO-15-84 August 2014—U.S. Digital Services Playbook March 2014—Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goal – Customer Service May 2012—Digital Government
Digging Into the Data of Our Customer Survey
As a followup to the recent post about our annual customer satisfaction survey, we wanted to dig into the data and share some of the overall results, to give you some more insights into how we’re using your feedback to improve our programs and services. Background: For the past three years, GSA’s Office of Citizen
CX Community—Year One
Customer experience, or CX, is everywhere these days. Companies tout how they’re improving the customer experience with faster service, greater convenience or better products. If you’re wondering how customer “experience” differs from customer “service,” customer service usually involves a single interaction, such as a phone call to your cable company, while the customer experience encompasses
OCSIT’s 2015 Customer Survey—What We Learned
Three years ago, GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies (OCSIT) set out to design a system to consistently measure customer satisfaction across our office. We were inspired by the Digital Government Strategy, which tasks agencies to adopt a customer-centric approach to service delivery.
Connecting with the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team
The new Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) aims to make government programs more effective and efficient. Amira Choueiki from the SBST joined us to explain what the SBST does, and to discuss some of the projects they’ve worked on. Amira also shared how agencies can propose projects for the SBST to tackle, and explained
CX Data in Action Series: Case Study #1
It’s not new that agencies are inundated with data, but what data should you collect to improve your agency’s programs and enhance the customer experience? The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefit Security Administration’s (EBSA) has been perfecting their process to collect actionable data for the past 14 years. EBSA is a regulatory agency that develops
UX vs. CX: What’s the Dif? Part 2
In honor of World Usability Day, which happened on November 12, we’d like to demystify two extremely important and oft-confusing acronyms—CX and UX. Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience (UX), while related, focus on different aspects of service delivery.
How Will You Celebrate Customer Service Week?
In 1992, Congress passed Public Law No: 102-481, which proclaimed the first full week in October as National Customer Service Week. Customer service is also a Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goal, tasking agencies to “deliver world-class customer services to citizens by making it faster and easier for individuals and businesses to complete transactions and have a
New Kid in Town: The Customer Experience Community
Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goals prioritize activities that all agencies must tackle each year. An important CAP Goal for 2015 addresses customer service and compels federal agencies to improve the quality of service the public receives from the federal government. To build on the momentum of this goal, the government Customer Experience Community of Practice (CX-COP)
How the Nationals’ Customer Experience Principles Can Be a Home Run for Agencies
In June, the new Customer Experience Community of Practice (CX-COP) hosted Jonathan Stahl, Executive Director of Ballpark Operations and Guest Experience of the Washington Nationals, to share best practices on how to deliver a great customer experience. Below are four insights he shared. Develop and
A Conversation with OMB on Customer Service
We recently sat down with Lisa Danzig, who’s leading work at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the FY15 Cross Agency Priority (CAP) goal on Customer Service (CS). The CS CAP goal aims to help agencies deliver world-class customer service to citizens that’s on par with leading private
10 Years of Digital Government—A Retrospective
In December of 2004, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the first Policies for Federal Public Websites. Over the past decade, we’ve seen technology completely transform how government delivers information and services to the public. On this 10-year anniversary, we’re taking a walk down memory lane to recap some of the pivotal moments
Customer Service Week 2014
They say that customer experience (CX) is the new marketing. People will tell their friends about their experience with your agency, and social media makes it easy to broadcast whether the experience was easy and enjoyable, or terrible. In 1992, Congress proclaimed the first full week in
Member Spotlight – Hannah Rubin, Library of Congress
Meet Hannah Rubin, who works in the Congressional Research Service (CRS) at the Library of Congress. She’s the focus of this month’s Member Spotlight. In addition to her “real” job, she’s also currently working as a “20%-er” with the
Member Spotlight – Jill James, Dept. of Education
Welcome to the first edition of a new series of articles spotlighting members of our Government Web Manager Community. This month, we introduce Jill James, who’s the Senior Web Editor/Director for the Department of Education, in their Communications and Outreach
Is It Tweet-Worthy?
The Web now contains over 1.51 billion pages of content, according to WorldWideWebSize.com. That’s a lot of reading material, and a lot of content competing with yours for attention. People won’t waste time (even a few seconds) on an article that doesn’t matter to them in some way—not when there are so many other interesting
Sample Position Descriptions for Digital Government Jobs
Use and customize these sample position descriptions to hire your own digital gov team. Position descriptions, as defined by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), include an official series, title, and grade based on the results of a classification determination. Accessibility Web Development and Accessibility Specialist (MS Word, 22 KB, 1 page, September 2012) Analytics
Sign up For DigitalGov Citizen Services Summit, Friday, May 30
We won’t build the government of the 21st century by drawing within the lines. We don’t have to tell you the hard work of building a digital government doesn’t exist in a vacuum or a bubble. Show us social media without mobile, Web without data and user experience without APIs. You can’t? That’s right—in reality,
Guidelines for Improving Digital Services
The Digital Services Advisory Group and the Federal Web Managers Council have developed the following guidelines to meet the 6.1 milestone of the Digital Government Strategy. These recommendations apply to all digital services, including Web, mobile, apps, APIs, and online forms. Guidelines Guideline 1: Digital Strategy Integrate your digital presence into your agency’s overall business, communications, and customer experience strategy Guideline 2: Governance,
How to Win Digital Like a Grammy
Digital Marketing Evangelist and analytics guru Avinash Kaushik recently published a fascinating article on Six Visual Solutions To Complex Digital Marketing/Analytics Challenges. The article is especially relevant to government organizations, because it talks about the importance of dynamic vs. static content. Government agencies tend
Paperwork Reduction Act Fast Track Process
Protect Your Customer’s Privacy Federal agencies must follow various laws and regulations, including the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) and the Privacy Act, when collecting information from the public. You should also be familiar with SORN (Systems of Records Notice), as well as rules around personally identifiable information, and laws that relate to your specific method of feedback collection
Checklist of Requirements for Federal Websites and Digital Services
Links to relevant laws, policies, and regulations for federal agencies.
9 Reasons Your Agency Should Have A CMS
Why Invest in a Content Management System? Does it take too long to update and post digital content? Do you lack consistent branding across your website(s)? Is outdated, redundant content leading to a poor customer experience? Does your agency website show up too far down in search results? Are you
Content Management Systems Toolkit
Improving the federal government’s ability to deliver digital information anytime, anywhere, on any device—via open content—is a key goal of the Digital Government Strategy. A content management system (CMS) can help your agency move to an open content model, making it easier for people to find, share, use, and re-use your information. The key steps
How to Create Open, Structured Content
Structured content refers to the concept of organizing and treating digital content like data. It’s a way of publishing content as modular, discrete pieces of information that are tagged with machine-readable descriptions. Structured content has the potential to transform how people find, understand, share, and use government information. Why Structured Content Matters Most digital content
How Canada is Revolutionizing Digital Governance
The Canadian government is changing how we think of traditional Web management. They built a platform of standards-compliant (HTML5, WCAG and WAI-ARIA), accessible and secure components that its agencies (and even provincial and municipalities) can use to build and maintain their sites. They are also focused