Most government agency employees want to work in a role where they feel they’re productive and making a difference each day, but it’s difficult to remain productive and positively engaged when working with processes you view as inefficient and legacy technologies that border on obsolete.
Lack of employee engagement isn’t just a challenge for the public sector. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, only 11% of the planet’s workforce says it feels engaged, while a whopping 62% does not. The remaining 27% say they are actively disengaged, viewing the companies they work for with negativity and then passing that emotion on to others. Until recently, the public sector and especially government agencies because of their sheer size and budget constraints, have been more apt to continue to work with inefficient and dated processes and tools at the growing expense of employee productivity and engagement.
Lost in Repetition
Front-line service and support staff have quickly become burnt out when dealing with constituents whose best and sometimes only option in recent years has been to connect with them via phone or email to resolve an issue. And if hundreds of individuals seeking quick assistance weren’t frustrated to begin with, they certainly were by the time they got to number one in a dehumanizing call queue. Maintaining employee engagement and headcount when agents are the sole source of information, continually fielding repetitive questions, are bound by call time constraints and spending their days listening and responding to angry people is almost an insurmountable task.
Knowledge is Power
The recent introduction of more cost-effective cloud-based solutions, however, has helped government employees increase productivity and satisfaction. The adoption of self-service knowledgebases alone has assisted in multiple ways, the biggest being in a reduction of repetitive phone calls and emails, allowing service and support representatives to focus on quality rather than quantity of interactions which reduces stress and increases job satisfaction.
In fact, the introduction of self-service knowledgebases has had a two-fold effect, increasing both citizen engagement and employee engagement with its use. For the second year in a row, American satisfaction with services provided by the federal government has increased, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, spurred by more and better information available online.
“Looking at the key factors that drive citizen satisfaction, the federal government has improved its marks for ease and efficiency of processes, customer service and information delivery,” says Claes Fornell, ACSI founder. “The most improved area for government, however, is website quality. Better government websites, coupled with more people making use of them, has contributed to higher levels of citizen satisfaction.”
Engagement from the Inside Out
In addition, the same knowledgebases that are serving the public are also being used internally to train and equip government staff with the information and best practices they need to better serve citizens and feel like they’re making more of a difference each day. This use of both external and internal-facing knowledgebases is a best practice taken straight from commercial best-in-class service providers, the majority of which provide their customer service agents with access to an internal resolution knowledgebase.
Better constituent engagement, improved government employee engagement – and if the self-service content is useful, current and delivered across channels including social media and mobile – increased productivity and cost savings through reduced customer escalation to more expensive customer service channels such as the phone are a result. In three little words, it’s a “win-win-win” for all involved.
New Parature Whitepaper Details Additional Government Customer Service Best Practices
For more government customer service best practices and advice from leading analysts, download Parature’s latest whitepaper, Multi-Channel Service: Elect to Serve Your Constituents, covering key topics in government customer service and constituent engagement including:
- Providing ‘no wrong door’ access
- Moving to the cloud
- Capturing voice of the customer feedback
- Using service to drive revenues and compete with the private sector
- Leveraging cloud technology simplicity to attract, retain and maximize IT talent.
