Mar 21 2008
eGovernment Websites Need to Focus on Customer Experience
According to an article in InformationWeek, a recent survey shows a decline in citizen satisfaction with eGovernment portals and Websites. The survey was conducted by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and shows the lowest satisfaction score in three years. Not surprisingy, a good portion of the angst is being caused by poor experience using these sites. According to Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results and author of the report; “Some government Web sites may be holding off on putting the necessary resources into improving the citizen experience until they have a better sense of whether or not they’ll be able to finish what they start. Unfortunately, citizens are the big losers when e-government is in limbo.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Government agencies are clearly playing catch-up to their commercial brethren in focusing on customer experience, but it’s quickly becoming an imperative as computer-savvy baby boomers become increasingly active with government services. Not to mention Millenials that expect to interact with the DMV, voter registration and everything else under the sun through the Web. And guess what? Commercial sites of all kinds are setting a high bar; they’re becoming richer in design, content and transactional capabilities every day.
Visualization is becoming a key strategy for moving user-centric design to the front-end of critical projects in the commercial sector. Just look at what Wachovia, WaMu, CitiBank and others are doing. Customer experience is the hot topic of the day across financial services, retail and other industries that are driven by reducing contact center traffic, improving conversion rates and increasing order size.
“The truth is out there,” to borrow a line from the old X-Files TV show.
It’s time that visualization become a standard on government projects as well. We will all benefit.