Rebuilding Trust: A Citizen-First Approach to Government Service Delivery

The issue of trust is complex and can affect how the public interacts with government agencies. One of the major factors affecting U.S. citizens’ trust in their government stems from their inability to interact with agencies quickly and easily. According to BCG’s 2024 Digital Government Citizen Survey, 74% of users surveyed have faced problems accessing online U.S. government services over the past two years. Most of the problems cited were related to different facets of customer experience (CX), such as the time it takes to perform simple tasks, ease of use, findability of information, and clarity of instructions.

“America is experiencing a crisis in public trust of government,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service. “One of the best ways to earn the public's trust back is through improved services from federal agencies. Whether it’s veterans who need health care, taxpayers who seek assistance from the IRS or college students who apply for financial aid, the public deserves user-friendly federal services.”¹

As the government seeks to improve CX measurements by improving service delivery, it relies on industry partners to help drive effective change. Interdisciplinary teams from Boston Consulting Group(BCG) work closely with government agencies to implement human-centered design (HCD) principles that accelerate digital design, build, test, and deployment work, while closing the trust gap.

In this first-of-a-series of articles, we explore the unique challenges faced by government agencies, policies the U.S. government has instituted to facilitate change, and specific insights and recommendations for improving CX.

A Steadily Downward Slope, But With Signs of Improvement

Since 1958, the Pew Research Center has tracked government-trust measures, which were at an all-time high in the mid-sixties at 77% but have been on a steady decline ever since. The measure hit an all-time low in 2023 when trust measured just 16%. This number has improved slightly during the first half of 2024 to approximately 20%, but there is still much work to be done.

Research by the Partnership for Public Service has found that when people distrust government, it is more difficult for agencies to deliver basic services like health care or respond to and solve complex national problems like the COVID 19 pandemic. As such, the government has a critical need to improve customers’ entire end-to-end experiences when engaging with agencies for information or services. These engagements may span several modes including digital, call centers and telephone services, in-person interactions and, in when dealing with legacy government processes, via mail or even fax.

To improve that experience, the government needs to understand the customer’s needs, motivations, and behaviors. Agencies like U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), with some of the highest customer-satisfaction scores, now regularly use HCD methods across their digital initiatives. By placing people at the center of how problems get defined and solved, HCD enables these agencies to build empathy, understand root causes, behaviors, and pain points in a way that improves service delivery. Before VA adopted a veteran-centric approach, its trust index measured 55%. Since incorporating HCD and putting veterans, their families, and caregivers first, the agency has increased its index to 80%.

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^{Source: "Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024." Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (June 24, 2024) https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/}

CX’s Role in Government

CX in government typically focuses on key touchpoints or "moments that matter" between an agency and its customers. These critical interactions can significantly impact the customer’s perception and satisfaction level, which, ultimately, influences their overall trust in government services.

There are several unique factors to consider when designing products for government agencies that don’t apply to the private sector. Government customers include individuals, government employees, businesses, and other federal agencies. These customers are not as easy to segment or understand as private sector customers. They comprise a vast, diverse group with a great variety of needs. As such, it is nearly impossible to meet all their needs on the first release of a digital product. That is why agencies such as IRS have started to follow software-launch best practices to improve the taxpayer experience. The agency found that its closed beta launch of Direct File was extremely successful in gathering feedback from a limited user base, enabling it to monitor product usage, collect feedback, and make necessary adjustments before releasing Direct File to its broader customer population.

Another important difference regarding the government’s delivery of digital services is the lack of competition. Often only one government agency provides a specific service: If that agency delivers poor CX, customers have nowhere else to turn. In the world of government service providers, threats from competitors rarely compel an agency to improve its CX. Government agencies won’t go out of business due to poor CX, nor will they lose revenue or market share as a result.

Opportunities to Improve the Customer Experience

In BCG’s 2024 Digital Government Citizen Survey, 77% of U.S. survey respondents said they expect digital government services to be as good or better than private sector digital services. The government can meet these expectations by focusing on three key opportunities:

• Modernize programs and digital tools
  
  • Create modernization and transformation strategies based on user research
  • Stop doing endless vendor “enhancements” on systems without doing HCD and understanding CX
  • Leverage private sector best practices
  • Use GenAI where it’s the right solution; avoid hype
  • Provide training and upskilling to employees to encourage their use of HCD
• Reduce administrative burdens and “time tax”
  
  • Understand current experience and biggest pain points / opportunities
  • Prioritize fixing what makes customers the most miserable
  • Co-create solutions to create efficiencies with users (citizens, stakeholders, and government employees)
  • Prototype and test solutions early and often to measure impact
  • Leverage data to continuously make improvements
• Provide seamless and secure customer experience
  
  • Measure CX and focus on improvements to “moments that matter” first
  • Coordinate omni-channel experiences
  • Ensure data security and privacy
  • Include contract language that requires vendor partners to use HCD and achieve CX outcomes as part of their work
  • Make all products and services accessible with 100% compliance with 508 accessibility requirements

Resetting Expectations

In December 2021, the President’s Management Agenda was launched to “improve the way the Federal Government does business, restore the American people’s trust in Government, and lay a strong foundation for working families for years to come.” Recognizing that this would be a long-term, complex endeavor, the administration began the process of resetting its relationship with the American public by outlining three priority areas, including strengthening and empowering the federal workforce; delivering excellent, equitable, and secure federal services and customer experience; and managing the business of government to build back better.

Given the complexity of modern technology, government agencies rely heavily on industry partners to augment their teams, implement state-of-the-art digital tools, and share industry best practices. So it’s important that vendors are committed to using HCD and driving CX improvements when working with these agencies. With access to resources and a citizen-first mindset, the government is well positioned to improve CX. Key to success is the government’s ability to put in place and promote supporting policies.

Policies Driving Demand for CX Capabilities

Since 2021, several policies have been established to improve government CX. These policies include:

• 2021 Executive Order: Transforming Federal CX and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government: This executive order marked a significant commitment to improving services with the introduction of the "Life Experiences" framework. The framework focuses on five key life experiences: having a child and early childhood, facing a financial shock, recovering from a disaster, navigating transition to civilian life, and approaching retirement. Agencies can improve service delivery by understanding these experiences from the customer’s point of view.
  
• 2023 OMB Circular A-11: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-11 provides comprehensive guidance on managing and improving CX within federal agencies. It highlights the importance of aligning CX efforts with the Paperwork Reduction Act to reduce the administrative burden on customers. And it emphasizes improving access to services, reducing unnecessary complexities, and actively engaging customers to gather feedback for continuous improvement.
  
• 2024 H.R. 5887 Government Service Delivery Improvement Act: This bipartisan House Resolution, which passed in the House in May 2024 and is awaiting Senate approval, would improve customer experience for all government agencies by creating a “federal government service delivery lead” within the OMB to coordinate government-wide service-improvement efforts.
  
• 2025 Federal Budget: $500M+ CX Budget Request: The proposed 2025 U.S. federal budget includes more than $500M specifically earmarked for customer-experience initiatives. This substantial investment builds on the 2021 Executive Order by focusing on modernizing services, reducing administrative burdens, and piloting new online tools to streamline service delivery. The budget also aims to fund "voice of the customer" programs, ensuring that agencies actively listen to and address customer feedback.

Climbing Back to High Levels of Trust

Even with the right policies in place, driving meaningful change is not easy. In addition to the scale of problems and solution delivery in government, other inherent complexities (e.g., security, interoperability, and aging legacy systems) and constraints (e.g., digital divide and lack of high speed internet in rural areas) need to be addressed with upskilling, improving tools and processes, measuring what matters, transparency, and engaging the right partners.

With the right resources, agencies will be empowered to implement these policies in a way that improves customers’ interactions with federal agencies and, therefore, their overall trust in government. But time is critical. At this moment, when public trust is near its all-time low, the administration needs to adopt a citizen-first, user-first approach to the way it designs and implements access to government information and services. If successfully implemented, the government can continue to reverse the downward trend in trust and create equitable, inclusive, and trustworthy experiences for all its citizens.

In our next article in this series, we will explore a variety of topics including CX trends and how to government agencies can manage risk, implement safe and effective GenAI solutions, and expand their HCD capabilities to continue to improve customer experience.

^{1: Source: "House Takes a Bipartisan Vote to Hold Agencies Accountable for Better Customer Service." Government Executive, Washington, D.C. (May 22, 2024) https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/05/house-takes-bipartisan-vote-hold-agencies-accountable-better-customer-service/396345}