What is Customer Experience
The phrase customer experience can take on many different meanings, so it is important that we define customer experience for the state of New York. Customer experience refers to the overall perception and satisfaction that residents and other stakeholders have when interacting with government services and agencies. This encompasses every touchpoint and interaction, from accessing information online to receiving in-person assistance for benefits.
A positive customer experience in government means services are accessible, efficient, user-friendly, and responsive to the needs of the public. It involves clear communication, minimal bureaucratic hurdles, timely updates, and the assurance that personal data is handled securely. Ultimately, enhancing customer experience in government aims to build trust between New Yorkers and their government, and improve the quality of public service delivery.
Terms to Understand
Understanding and addressing the needs of these diverse customers is essential for delivering responsive government services.
A common set of definitions helps improve the communication between leadership and those closest to the service. These are the basic terminology New York State agencies, vendors, and practitioners can use to describe the key events, stakeholders, and processes that impact customer experience.
- Customer - Any individuals or entity that interacts with government a New York State agency or service. This includes residents, businesses, and other organizations that seek information, assistance, or access to government programs and services. New York State customers may include members of the general public, as well as State employees themselves. Customers may interact directly with the State or through one of its contracted vendors or a State-funded program.
- User - any customer interacting with a New York State website, application, call center, agency representative.
- User Experience (UX) - a component of Customer Experience dealing with how New Yorkers interact with your product and the experience they receive from that interaction. UX is measured with metrics like: success rate, error rate, abandonment rate, time to complete task, and (if it's a digital product) clicks to completion.
- Customer Experience (CX) - the public's perceptions of and overall satisfaction with interactions with an agency, product, or service. It also encompasses the overall impression a customer has when navigating state entities.
- Service Delivery - the multitude of diverse interactions between a customer and State agency. Services are delivered through many different communication channels including but not limited to websites, emails, phone calls, and in-person interactions.
- Service - the sum of the help provided by an agency and its partners throughout the process a customer goes through to obtain, receive, or make use of a public offering (or comply with a policy). Services begin with a customer need, are processed through either a self-service workflow or a series of interactions, and end with an outcome. Services need not deliver a physical good or benefit and could extend as simply as delivering information via a website.
- Critical State Service Provider (CSSP) - state entities designated by the New York State CXO that provide or fund high-impact customer-facing services, either due to a large customer base or a high impact on those served by the program. Here's the current list of CSSPs.
- Human-Centered Design (HCD) - a problem-solving method that aims to solve challenges by deeply understanding the experiences of the people most impacted by them. A typical HCD process includes discovery, design, delivery, and measurement stages, with an emphasis on iteratively prototyping solutions that better meet users' needs.
- Journey Map - a visual representation of the steps the customer takes to reach their goals and the emotions they feel at each step of the process.
- Touchpoints - any direct or indirect contact a customer has with your service/product. A touchpoint can be digital, physical, or human. Here are examples of each:
- Digital Touchpoints: website, email, mobile application, online form, automated messenger
- Physical Touchpoints: on-site at an organization's location, interacting with a physical service/product, such as completing a paper form
- Human Touchpoints: interaction between an organization's employee and a customer
- Voice of Customer (VOC) - a systematic approach for collecting, analyzing, and taking actions based on the customer feedback data that an organization collects..