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Priority of the President's Management Agenda

Delivering Excellent, Equitable, and Secure Federal Services and Customer Experience

Challenge

Federal services have not always been designed with the public’s needs and priorities in mind, nor have these services always kept up with these needs.

Poorly designed, out of date, and inequitable government services are a cost to our nation; it can mean that Veterans don’t get benefits they have earned, small business owners can’t access financing to grow their businesses, new mothers and infants lack critical nutrition supports, and disaster survivors face mountains of paperwork to rebuild their homes.

Opportunity

The Federal Government must deliver a simple, seamless, and secure customer experience, on par with or more effective than leading consumer experiences.

In all sectors, services should reduce burdens not increase them. Irrespective of people’s age, location, digital savvy, disability, education, or English proficiency, the American people deserve a government that understands who they are, what they need, and how best to deliver for them. Every interaction between the government and the public is an opportunity to deliver the services people expect and deserve. Whether during a pivotal life experience such as retiring, or a routine interaction to renew a passport, the government must build our understanding of our customers and involve them – the people we serve – to improve benefits, services, and programs and enable us to deliver for all Americans. We can get there by using technology to power outstanding experiences; engaging with private-sector and nonprofit organizations; partnering with state, local, Tribal, and territorial governments; collaborating with other partners to reduce administrative burden of interaction with the Federal Government, simplifying both public-facing and internal processes to improve efficiency, and empowering the federal workforce, including through various diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives, so that they can best deliver for the American people. Understanding our customers’ needs through gathering feedback, conducting research, sharing insights, and testing new approaches will ensure we are designing with our customers in mind every step of the way and enable us to deliver for all.

Leadership
Robin Carnahan
Administrator • GSA
Xochitl Torres Small
Deputy Secretary • USDA
Tanya J. Bradsher
Deputy Secretary • VA

Activity

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February 2024

The CX team continues to empower agencies to deliver an increasingly simple, seamless, and secure customer experience across government. In September 2023, the OMB CX team surveyed HISPs about training needs, drawing on insights from the 2023 Capacity Assessment, Deep Dives, and agency conversations. Over the past several months, HISPs have begun engaging in collaborative efforts to build their capacity in journey map development, organizational design, digital experience, talent models and much more, learning through workshops as a cohort across government. Simultaneously, the OMB CX team provided “Office Hours” to assist HISPs in transitioning their surveys to updated A-11 280 guidelines, streamlining and simplifying the response process and aligning with best practices in customer experience management. For the latest updates on HISP customer feedback data, see the CX Trust Dashboard for HISP Trust Scores and the Customer Feedback Data Dashboard for drivers of customer experience. 

Across the five Life Experiences, collaborating agency PMC members and OMB agreed on plans for 12 projects for design and pilot phase work in FY24. Individual project teams have provided detailed updates on their progress in implementing and scaling their pilots, as well as outlining additional milestones and next steps through updates in the Strategy 2 tables and the dedicated Life Experience project pages. Finally, the Strategy 3 teams continue to build out shared resources and tools to support implementation of recent OMB guidance on Digital Experience and Digital Accessibility. Digital.gov ​​has been reimagined and reorganized to serve as the central hub for information on these resources and features over 50 topic pages on the various aspects that contribute to digital experience delivery.

Highlights

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December 2023

Agency High Impact Service Providers (HISPs) participated in CX Action Plan “Pitch” meetings throughout summer 2023. HISP teams discussed and shared their respective HISP’s deliverables for 2023 and commitments for delivery in 2024 based on expected realities, which can be found in each HISP’s 2023 CX Action Plan, and their potential priorities for FY 2025 based on opportunities and gaps identified throughout FY 2023’s CX Capacity Assessments and “Deep Dive” conversations. HISP teams also discussed the possibility of new service designations for FY 2024 and making adjustments to existing designations. For more information on the agency HISPs, a list of HISP services and 2023 CX Action Plans, please visit the HISP web page in the CX section of performance.gov (last revised December 7, 2023). In addition, the Life Experience teams completed an initial design phase for their project milestones announced in January 2023. Each of the project teams presented summaries of their progress to the President’s Management Council in October, which are now in the sidebar of each Life Experience page here. Moving forward, Life Experience teams will shift focus towards the development phase of their projects to refine, scale, and implement their findings. Moving forward, Life Experience teams will shift focus towards the development phase of their projects to refine, scale, and implement their findings; each Life Experience page includes more information about each project. Lastly, following the release of OMB guidance on Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience in September 2023, the team working under Strategy 3 has developed additional milestones aligned to key actions specified in the guidance. These additions build on existing in-progress commitments to provide agencies with the shared standards and services they need to continually enhance digital experiences for the public and fully implement the requirements of the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act. To learn more about the guidance and available resources for agencies, read the White House Fact Sheet or visit the Digital.gov resource page.

Highlights

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August 2023

The 35 High Impact Service Providers (HISPs) worked diligently to assess their own customer experience (CX) capabilities as they continue to design improvements that address pain points of their customers. In February of 2023, all 35 HISPs completed their CX Capacity Assessment. This activity provided HISPs with an opportunity to self-report their capacity and maturity levels on components of CX including: talent, service management, digital capabilities, and leadership buy-in. The OMB CX team analyzed the Capacity Assessment submissions to prepare for Deep Dive meetings with each HISP in March 2023, in which the team discussed results and explored further opportunities to build a comprehensive understanding of HISP organizational maturity, capacity to deliver, barriers to success, and catalysts for improvements. The Life Experience portfolios and projects are working to meet milestones and produce deliverables for this fiscal year and beyond. Teams are traveling nationwide, leading workshops, testing prototypes, providing technical assistance, and continuing to learn from members of the public. For the Facing a financial shock portfolio, state prototypes are underway to enable automated ex parte renewals (determining eligibility with data already available). Newborn Supply Kits (Birth to early childhood) have been launched in Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico, with a hospital partner in each state and additional community-based organizational distribution partners. This quarter’s milestone report also includes accomplishments and progress in the Approaching retirement, Recovering from a disaster, and Transition to civilian life portfolios. Lastly, Strategy 3 now includes new deliverables in support of the implementation of 21st Century IDEA.

Highlights

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May 2023

The Customer Experience Priority Area has continued to deliver on its commitment to a simple, seamless, and secure customer experience across federal government services and platforms. The team has produced a new data visualization of post-transaction trust data reported by High Impact Service Providers in support of the Priority Area’s success measure. Across the five Life Experiences, project teams have provided detailed updates on their progress toward completing their goals, along with planned milestones and next steps. Additionally, leaders are taking strides towards their goal of designing and developing resources to empower agencies to deliver better federal websites and digital services, in addition to releasing new planned milestones for Strategy 3.

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March 2023

The Customer Experience Priority Area continued to make progress to transform federal benefits, services, and programs through improved service delivery and customer experience. Updates for individual High Impact Service Providers’ commitments to make their services more simple, seamless, and secure are now available at performance.gov/cx/executive-order. Notably, each of the five Life Experiences teams have publicly shared their discovery sprint findings, including detailed customer journey maps and stories, and have identified initial projects for implementation in 2023 to address priority pain points at performance.gov/cx/projects.

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November 2022

The Customer Experience Priority Area has made progress translating the President’s historic Executive Order 14058 on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government into action. In addition to individual agencies acting to improve their customer experience, the five priority Life Experiences projects announced this Spring are developing opportunity areas for agency and government-wide action based on their discovery sprints. OMB and GSA also recently announced that the Technology Modernization Fund will allocate $100 million to improve customer experiences with the federal government. Finally, the 35 federal High Impact Service Providers (HISPs) continue to make progress promoting ongoing accountability for federal service delivery. See additional details and updates on progress on the CX Blog.

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July 2022

The Customer Experience Priority Area has made progress in each of the three strategies aiming to collectively transform Federal benefits, services, and programs through improved service delivery and customer experience. Further, since President Biden signed Executive Order 14058, the OMB Customer Experience (CX) Team has provided quarterly updates on progress on the CX Blog.

Highlights

High Impact Services for the American Public

Improve the nation’s highest impact services

38 of the nation’s highest impact service providers are raising the standard of government service delivery. High Impact Service Providers (HISPs) are designated due to the scale and critical nature of their public-facing services. Annually, HISP teams conduct comprehensive assessments of their high-impact services, measure their customer experience maturity, and identify actions to improve service delivery.

Projects and Milestones

In progress

  • 38 of 38 HISPs collect customer feedback for each of their designated services by FY25 Q1.
  • 38 of 38 HISPs report high quality trust data publicly by FY25 Q1.

Supporting Americans During Life Experiences

Transform the way the government serves the public

Interagency teams are exploring how to better support people during significant events or transitions. The Life Experience program works to improve the experience for those navigating and using services across multiple agencies when approaching retirement, recovering from a disaster, navigating the transition to civilian life, having a child and early childhood, or facing a financial shock.

Projects and Milestones

In progress

  • Pilot a newborn supply kit at the time of birth.
  • Support states to streamline access to benefits.
  • Streamline Disaster Assistance processes.

Simple, Seamless, and Secure Government

Enhance Americans’ digital experience with the Federal Government

The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act and OMB’s guidance on Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience provide a roadmap to deliver simple, seamless, and secure digital customer experiences across the Federal Government. With nearly two billion visits to federal websites each month, digital is increasingly becoming the primary way the public interacts with government.

Projects and Milestones

In progress

  • Update Digital.gov with additional resources and best practices for implementation of 21st Century IDEA by FY24 Q1. 
  • Update government-wide search tool (search.gov) to help the public access information and services by FY24 Q2.