Fostering transparency, communication and trust — and delivering enhanced citizen engagement — is paramount in government, according to Salesforce APAC’s senior director, public sector strategy, Gisele Kapterian.
“There’s a direct causal link between trust levels and the quality of service delivered by governments,” said Kapterian, who’s has extensive experience providing strategic advice to governments and corporations on a range of legal, business, political and public policy issues.
She cites research undertaken in a project between Salesforce and BCG, which examined the relationship between digital service delivery and trust in government.
“What we found was compelling,” said Kapterian..
“In fact, 90 percent of respondents to the survey across Australia and New Zealand said the quality of service influences their trust in government.
“Our research has shown that improved service quality generated greater trust in government. This creates a virtuous circle of trust, data sharing, better service delivery, and improved service quality.”
Certainly, in the age of data overload and heightened security breaches, Kapterian said building trust with citizens is critical and central to overall government success, and in maintaining successful citizen engagement long-term.
Better still, the strong uptake of digital technologies in government is the way forward — and “data is the key” to driving better services and fostering greater efficiency, as the world has witnessed over the last few years, she said.
“The value of adopting digital technologies to better serve customers has never been clearer. Throughout the rolling series of crises we’ve faced over the last three years, digital service delivery — at pace and at scale — has played an increasingly bigger role in the execution of economic and social recovery plans," she said.
“Governments knowing their customers will be more important than ever as they look to do more with less, and deliver better services with greater efficiency. The fuel for better services is data and the key to citizens sharing that information is trust that it will be used in the way described and for their benefit.”
New reality for public sector leaders
So, how can government agencies build trust by using the power of tech to help them get there — and what do citizens really want?
Firstly, Kapterian said government departments need to recognise that citizens expect quality.
“Citizens expect government services to be the same calibre — or better — than the best private sector companies in the world. In fact, more than 90 percent of respondents said that is what they expect. And while the pandemic may have intensified these attitudes, the research indicates they aren’t a temporary product of it — instead, this is the new reality for public sector leaders.”
Indeed, this ‘new reality’ comes amid rising consumer expectations that sees heightened calls for increased interaction, and more personalised and proactive services.
Citizens require government services to deliver on basic expectations like ease of use and seamlessness to complete the engagement, but they want more — according to the research, 84 percent of ANZ respondents are now seeking some level of proactivity for service delivery.
“More than 70 percent expect those services to be personalised, meaning they expect governments to understand their unique needs and expectations. Additionally, more than 90 percent of respondents support data sharing between agencies to deliver more tailored services and deliver the right outcome,” she said.
“There are two fundamental elements of trust in government services and their use of data: gaining genuine consent to the use of data, and using that information to deliver a benefit for the end user.”
Personalisation in action
Certainly, delivering personalised and proactive services requires an accurate, up-to-date understanding of the customer, Kapterian explained.
“With digital processes and technologies, governments can take a much more nuanced approach to customer service — one that better caters to the diverse needs of customers. To deliver on customer trust and personalisation expectations, governments are supported by a platform approach, which supports the delivery of services quicker and at a significantly lower cost.”
Undoubtedly, the pandemic showed why flexible digital platforms were essential for government service delivery.
Service NSW for example, enabled new services to be quickly configured, using existing templates and patterns to create new services and modify existing ones.
“With the fundamental cloud-based services already in place, there was a relatively low capital cost to deploying new services. This dramatically reduced the time to value, typically accelerating speed to delivery by up to 60 percent at about half the cost of traditional IT systems.”
But personalisation doesn’t come without hurdles, namely strategy and framework, she said.
“Now that customers clearly expect personalisation and proactively from governments, this permission to ‘personalise’ means governments can move from being mere custodians of data to informed service delivery experts.
“But that can only be done with the right data frameworks. The recent passing of the DATA Act (Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022) is an important catalyst for this work. The trick will be to ensure that only data necessary to deliver a great service is shared between agencies.”
What’s more, transformation programs are often planned and executed in silos, revealing the other big hurdle.
“Therefore, the most successful transformations have technology, business, strategy and change management leaders at the same table.”
Pathway to Personalisation
Research reveals that most ANZ customers will share their data in exchange for more personalised services if two conditions are met:
- Firstly, they must receive a tangible benefit. This could be better targeted services and more timely information
- Secondly, their data must be secure and not used against their best interests or without consent. Importantly, customers’ concerns about how their data will be used have reduced significantly since 2020.
“Take the time to understand your customers’ expectations of what personalised and proactive services look like for them. Start small, with a broad use case, and deliver quickly,” Kapterian ended.
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