The CX Tipping Point®

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EP 25 - The Importance of Contact Centers in Delivering Excellent, Equitable, and Secure Federal Services featuring Evan Davis, Maximus Federal Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of “The CX Tipping Point Podcast,” Martha Dorris talked to Evan Davis, a Senior Vice President at Maximus Federal about “The Importance of Contact Centers in Delivering Excellent, Equitable, and Secure Federal Services.” Contact centers are the hub of digital services and one of the best ways to assess what’s on the mind of your customers and what the reasons for their interactions were. In many instances, when someone contacts the contact center, it’s after trying to solve their problem online or through other options. Therefore, they may be at a very vulnerable time in their lives. Evan shared the important role that contact centers have in delivering equitable and inclusive services that meet the needs of underserved communities. He also shared how Maximus Federal trains their staff to be empathetic with their customers they are interacting with on behalf of government agencies.

COVID has exposed numerous gaps in the operations of contact centers. The public wants answers to their questions that are consistent across channels. Employees may need information as well. Evan shared how organizations can ensure that the information they deliver is consistent. During COVID, many agencies migrated their contact center staff to remote work when they didn’t believe it would ever be permitted. Learn how Maximus Federal worked with agencies to migrate their contact center staff to remote work at many of the most important services in the country.
How will contact centers operate in the future? The contact center of the future needs to be considered as agencies are creating their digital services strategies.
To learn about other CX topics, check out past Citizen Services Newsletters and subscribe here.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The CX Tipping Point Podcast! If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing, rating, and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your support helps us reach more listeners!

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EP 24 - How Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Improves the Lives of the Public and Employees featuring Kimberly Walton Oct 11, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The CX Tipping Point Podcast, Martha Dorris talked with Kimberly Walton, formerly the Executive Assistant Administrator for Enterprise Support. Throughout her career, Kimberly has focused her efforts to create a diverse and inclusive workforce. Today, she leads her own consultancy focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA).
In most cases, DEIA is rattled off in a string as if they are all the same thing. Kimberly defined each of these areas and why they are an important element to delivering services to customers.

President Biden signed Executive Order 13985 on “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities through the Federal Government,” on his first day in office. In addition, DEIA and the Administration’s priorities around empowering employees and delivering excellent, equitable and secure federal services are inextricably intertwined. Kimberly shared her expertise on the importance of a maturity matrix as a way to identify gaps and provide a roadmap for agencies.

In the past, diversity and inclusion were primarily discussed in terms of employees but this Administration applies DEIA issues to the way the government delivers services. DEIA issues were critical as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) conducted their screenings in airports. Learn what Kimberly recommends for agencies when addressing their DEIA issues.

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EP 23 - VA's Use of Innovation to Improve Healthcare of Veterans featuring VHA Office of Healthcare, Innovation and Learning Sep 13, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of “The CX Tipping Point” Podcast, Martha Dorris spoke to Dr. Anne Bailey, Director of Clinical Tech Innovation for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Innovation Ecosystem (IE) and the Immersive Tech Lead for the Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning (OHIL) at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). We also spoke to Caitlin Rawlins, Innovation Specialist for the Western North Carolina VA Health Care System within the VA’s Office of Healthcare, Innovation and Learning (OHIL).

As the Immersive Tech Lead, Dr. Anne Lord Bailey expertly works across the Immersive Tech growth lane to encourage VHA employees to think outside of the box and strengthen their innovation muscle around immersive technologies at VHA. VHA, as many other large organizations, can oftentimes be siloed, with multiple people unknowingly working to solve the same problem.

The Immersive Tech team works collaboratively to simulate, scale, and sustain immersive technology innovation at VHA with the goal of improving the lives of employees and Veterans. As immersive technology is implemented across VHA, the data on Veteran benefits speak for themselves. Dr. Bailey and Caitlin Rawlins shared the experiences and successes of using immersive technologies and how using XR as a distraction tool helps to decrease pain, stress and anxiety, boredom and restless behaviors while also aiding relaxation. For Veterans suffering from acute and chronic pain, 61% saw a drop in pain intensity. One hundred percent of Veterans using XR to aid with restless behaviors felt a decrease in restlessness, and 67% of those Veterans also exhibited an increase in calm and cooperative behavior.

They shared their recommendations for creating an innovative culture to bring new ways of thinking into any organization.

Dr. Anne Bailey and Caitlin Rawlins are 2022 Service to the Citizen Award winners!

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EP 22 - Insights on How the Federal Government is Implementing Customer Experience Aug 09, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The CX Tipping Point, Martha Dorris, the host, is interviewed by Alex Yerkes, the producer. Martha discusses the difference between customer experience, customer service, and user experience, including the components of CX such as governance, customer understanding, performance measurement, culture and design thinking. She also expands on her testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on “Putting People First: Building Trust in Government through Customer Experience” last month.

Martha discussed the value of delivering excellent, equitable and secure government services to the public, to government employees, to the government and to building trust in government which was the focus on the Biden-Harris Administration’s management agenda and operationalizing the Government CX policy framework through the subsequent Executive Order 14058 on “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government.” In the podcast, she cited the 2021 Pew Public Trust in Government data. “The Public Trust in Government: 1958 through 2022” research has shown trust to drop by 4% in 2022 to 20%.

Martha provided her unique perspective on improving customer experience in the federal government, including the challenges they have faced and successes along the way, as well as the importance of making the improvement of government services a priority with a vision and roadmap for designing services during key life events by putting people first, identifying short-term commitments for agencies, and strategies for incorporating CX into the business of government.

Martha also gave some tips on how to “get started” in any organization and for a person who is interested in CX and what the government can learn from the private sector. For further information on how CX is being implemented in the federal government, subscribe to “The Citizen Services Newsletter” or listen to previous CX Tipping Point podcasts. We continue to strive to improve the lives of Americans through transformed government services.

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EP 21 - Granicus: Leveraging Subscription Data to Understand Your Customers Jul 12, 2022

Show notes

When did you last receive an e-mail from a government agency? What about a text message? Was it relevant? Timely? Did it understand who you were and what you needed to know? Did it guide you to the right next step? Did it anticipate your questions and concerns? Answering these questions are a good start to connecting an agency’s subscriber experience with its customer experience.
In this episode of The CX Tipping Point™ Podcast, Martha Dorris spoke to Angy Peterson, the Vice President for the Granicus Experience Group, and Bob Ainsbury, the Chief Product Officer at Granicus. One of the important ways that government can improve the public’s experience is through communications that ensures the public or customers are aware of services offered. GovDelivery, one of the products in the Granicus family, helps governments accomplish that.
With govDelivery, Granicus serves more than 300 million subscribers in over 5,500 federal, state and local government agencies. Listeners will learn from that experience during this podcast in areas such as:

How agencies are using govDelivery to communicate with their customers,
How the subscriber model and audience segmentation helps agencies proactively communicate targeted messages to their customers, and
How agencies can leverage data to which they currently have access.

While many agencies use these tools for synchronous communications and email campaigns, agencies can also use govDelivery to gain greater insights into customer needs and improve the experience of accessing services with proactive messaging to guide customers through complex processes. The real-time data this approach creates is a significant resource in improving the customer experience.

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EP 20 - Kshemendra Paul: Customer Experience: Unlocking the Power of Data Jun 14, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The CX Tipping Point, Martha Dorris spoke with Kshemendra Paul, the Chief Data Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Kshemendra has a long history of driving data sharing across the federal government and levels of government. In his role at the VA, he has been tasked with modernizing and energizing the data and analytics community, building on the VA’s history of innovation and leadership, and elevating the focus on data as the enterprise-wide strategic asset.

Kshemendra shares the structure of his organization and its placement within the VA and how the VA is leveraging data when improving the lives of veterans, families, caregivers and survivors. He also shares some of the VA’s major accomplishments impacting the veterans and employees, priorities over the next few years, recommendations for customer experience and Chief Data Officers on working together to improve their customers’ experience.

Learn how the VA is working with the Department of Defense (DoD) to create a seamless, integrated experience from active military to civilian life.

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EP 19 - Dr. Liz Herman: Knowledge Management: The Secret Ingredient to Delivering an Omnichannel Experience May 16, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of “The CX Tipping Point Podcast,” Martha Dorris talked with Dr. Liz Herman, a knowledge management expert and professional. Liz defined knowledge management as “the strategies and processes aligned with identifying, capturing, structuring, and valuing the organization's intellectual assets - what the organization knows, to enhance its performance and its service to its customers.” Capturing and documenting that knowledge are the two key areas as well as disseminating across the organization. The knowledge needs to be accessible within the organization and external to the organization.

With the Administration’s focus on transforming government services, Dr. Herman discussed the importance of knowledge management in delivering simple, seamless, secure, accurate and consistent information to the government’s customers. As a result of the pandemic, the public is expecting a more asynchronous relationship with agencies and the ability to self-serve 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Knowledge management enables those service improvements. Solving the customers’ problems or answering their important questions, the public develops more trust and confidence in the government.

Learn about the challenges and solutions for improving knowledge management.

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SPECIAL EDITION | EP 18: Lessons Learned from the Federal Government's Leading Customer Experience Leaders May 02, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of “The CX Tipping Point Podcast,” Martha Dorris spoke with leaders of High Impact Service Providers and customer experience within their agencies. The included:

Barbara Morton, Deputy Chief Veteran Experience Officer, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
Niki French, Customer Service Branch Manager, Transportation Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Simchah Suveyke-Bogin, Chief Customer Experience Officer, US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Ken Corbin, Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer and Commissioner for Wage and Investment , Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Department of the Treasury
Kimberly Baldwin-Sparks, Chief Business Officer, Social Security Administration
Bianca Fitzpatrick, Deputy Chief, Digital Services Division, US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), DHS
LaShonda Hodge, Customer Experience (CX) Lead, IT Modernization Centers of Excellence, General Services Administration (GSA)

In this podcast, learn how the Government’s Customer Experience (GovCX) Framework is interconnected and complementary. The GovCX Framework includes the:

President’s Management Agenda
Executive Order 14058, Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Improving Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government signed on December 13, 2021
Section 280 of OMB Circular A-11, Managing Customer Experience and Improving Service Delivery and
21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA), passed in December 2018

How has the GovCX Framework accelerated the focus on transforming government services that put people at the center and delivering digital first but not digital only services to all? The agencies represented on this episode of the podcast serve hundreds of millions of people across the country and around the world. These include serving veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors; taxpayers, small and large businesses; beneficiaries of social security; farmers, ranchers and producers; families, immigrants; the traveling public; and more.

Every HISP is at a different level of maturity in their CX journey. Learn from these CX leaders across the government about:

How the GovCX Framework has enabled or will enable them to transform government services.
Themes that run across the GovCX Framework and how they are enabling improvements, including:
- How human-centered design and voice of the customer programs have created aha moments that matter to their customers
- Examples of successes/improvements they have made to meet the needs of underserved communities
- Examples of agency partnerships to provide services to the public during key life events (e.g., navigating from active military to civilian life, surviving a disaster and successfully providing economic impact payments (EIPs)). How will the government address Priority Life Events in the future?
The importance of addressing employee experience as we move towards the workplace of the future.

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EP 17 - Wendy Bhagat: Improving and Simplifying the Federal Student Aid Process Apr 11, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of “The CX Tipping Point” Podcast, Martha Dorris spoke with Wendy Bhagat, the Director of Product Marketing and Delivery at the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid (FSA). FSA is a High Impact Service Provider (HISP) and was the first agency to recognize the need to apply the methodologies and strategies of customer experience in 2010. FSA has over 40 million customers, many of them are customers for over 20 years, as they become customers when entering college through the repayment of their student loans.

In this episode, we discussed the importance and impact that the President’s Management Agenda and Executive Order 14058, “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government,” had on meeting their vision as the trusted source for federal financial aid information. FSA has been working with other agencies to simplify the FAFSA application process and communicating with their customers by segment to ensure that students, parents and financial institutions are informed as changes occur such as student loan repayments being paused.

During the COVID pandemic, over the past two years, loan repayments were paused five times. Learn how FSA has communicated with almost 40 million customers monthly as the repayment pauses continued. Email is one of their primary communication channels with an open rate of 50%, as well as social media, virtual events and paid media. Working with other agencies, FSA was also able to provide their customers with information on other benefits they may be interested in or eligible for such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or free Internet.

Wendy is a 2021 Service to the Citizen Award Winner for her work at Federal Student Aid.

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EP 16 - Airis McCottry Gill: How Employee Experience at the VA Impacts the Veterans’ Experience Mar 14, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of “The CX Tipping Point Podcast,” Martha Dorris speaks with Airis McCottry Gill, who is the Executive Director for Employee Experience and Organizational Management at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Veterans Experience Office. The VA is leading the way in focusing on employee experience and how it drives service delivery for veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors.

Airis shared her efforts to understand VA’s workforce and address two areas identified through their human centered design approach and employee journey map. These are improving the onboarding experience and developing "my career." Through joint efforts with human resources, they are developing tools and approaches to address “developing my career.”

This program began as a leadership development assignment and due to its success and support within the VA, has become an initiative supported by an organization. They leveraged the approach used in the veteran experience efforts. Their vision is to provide a world class employee experience that empowers all team members to serve our veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors with pride. Their mission is to ensure an inclusive, responsive, seamless and employee centric experience through which all team members feel valued and supported.

Learn how Airis and the VA are working to accomplish this vision and mission to improve the employee experience and the veteran experience to build trust in the VA.

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