CX Accomplishments Across New York State

In 2025, New York State focused on making government services more dependable, easier to navigate, and faster to access. Across agencies, customer experience efforts reduced backlogs, shortened processing times, improved access to information, and removed unnecessary steps that had long slowed people down. These improvements reflect a shift toward fixing systems instead of asking customers to work around them.

Guided by shared CX measures and three core pillars—Operational Excellence, Digital Transformation, and Innovative Service Delivery—agencies moved beyond isolated improvements and embedded customer experience into day-to-day operations. The results below highlight where New Yorkers saw tangible improvements in speed, clarity, and reliability.

Operational Excellence

Improving reliability, reducing backlogs, and strengthening day-to-day service delivery:

• Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV): Improved call center performance while issuing 1.6 million more REAL IDs, reducing dropped calls by 28% and shortening response times, resulting in more reliable access to services during peak demand.
• Department of State (DOS): The Division of Licensing Services expanded staffing and modernized workflows, cutting customer wait times by more than 80% and reducing licensing processing times to just days instead of months. The Division of Corporations eliminated nearly all processing backlogs, reducing average wait times from years to same-day service for critical business and legal filings.
• Division of Human Rights (DHR): Established a centralized Intake Unit that standardized reviews, reduced backlogs by 44%, and saved approximately 100 staff hours per week. At the same time, the agency’s modernization efforts helped the Housing Investigations Unit close more than twice as many cases as it did during the same period in 2024.
• Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC): Eliminated a backlog of more than 8,000 unprocessed awards, ensuring students and families received financial aid decisions in time to support enrollment.
• Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs: Introduced new triage and follow-up processes that cut case cycle times by nearly 50%, helping safety concerns move forward faster.
• State Liquor Authority (SLA), Refunds Unit: Modernized refund processing, returning over $7 million to businesses in weeks instead of months and reducing pending requests to a manageable, predictable level.

Digital Transformation

Modernizing services to be clearer, faster, and easier to use:

• Department of Civil Service: Transitioned more than half of NYSHIP members to paperless communications and simplified materials through plain-language videos, reducing administrative costs by over $5 million annually.
• Department of Labor: Piloted a self-service check-in and queue management tool that cut average wait times to 10 minutes and allowed staff to focus on one-on-one support.
• Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV): Launched an eligibility web form that reduced contact center emails by 36% and LiveChat volume by over 50%, allowing customers to self-resolve questions more easily.
• Department of State: Revamped more than 200 licensing webpages and partnered across agencies to reach over one million New Yorkers with clearer, more actionable licensing information.
• Department of Taxation and Finance: Launched the Homeownership Benefit Portal, moving STAR registrations and payments online and shortening the time it takes homeowners to receive benefits.
• Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC): Consolidated financial aid pathways into a single experience and launched personalized tools that helped millions of users identify aid opportunities more easily. Expanded digital and text-based engagement, significantly increasing reach among students, families, and adult learners.
• Hudson River–Black River Regulating District: Introduced an online permit renewal portal, saving customers time and fees while reducing staff handling of paper applications.
• Office of Information Technology Services (ITS): Expanded shared digital tools through the NYS Design System, enabling agencies to build websites faster, more consistently, and with fewer errors.
• New York State Digital Service: Improved dozens of agency websites using Digital First Standards and expanded analytics capacity, giving agencies real-time insight into customer behavior. Collected tens of thousands of customer feedback responses, contributing to measurable improvements in customer satisfaction scores. Launched a user-first search tool that helps people find services faster, now used by the majority of visitors to ny.gov.
• Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD): Launched a digital capacity management platform to improve visibility and matching for residential placements.
• Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB): Replaced paper-based systems with secure digital workflows, cutting medical billing dispute timelines by over 90% and resolving most treatment requests within one day.

Innovative Service Delivery

Reducing barriers and meeting customers where they are:

• Department of Civil Service: Temporarily waived civil service exams for many roles through NY HELPS, enabling tens of thousands of faster hires and expanding access to public service careers. Reached nearly all adults statewide with clear information about government jobs and supported over 180,000 jobseekers through direct assistance.
• Department of Taxation and Finance: Introduced courtesy callbacks so customers no longer need to wait on hold, providing a more predictable and respectful support experience.
• New York State of Health: Used multilingual SMS and WhatsApp campaigns to help hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers reenroll in health coverage more easily. Deployed targeted outreach to reconnect customers who lost coverage, helping many regain access to health care.
• Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD): Gathered feedback from families and providers statewide to improve how culturally and linguistically appropriate services are delivered. Released multilingual explainer videos that helped tens of thousands of users better understand how to access services.
• Workers’ Compensation Board: Expanded provider participation and removed administrative barriers, helping injured workers receive care sooner and with fewer delays.

Looking Ahead

Across agencies, customer experience is reshaping how government works, from how services are designed to how success is measured. The accomplishments above reflect real progress: fewer delays, clearer processes, and more dependable access to essential services.

By embedding CX into operations, governance, and decision-making, New York State is building the foundation for sustained improvement. The Office of Customer Experience will continue to scale what works, deepen measurement, and strengthen cross-agency collaboration to deliver services that are faster, clearer, and more responsive for all New Yorkers.