But, with the daunting tide of new technology, what is the best way for government to keep up? A constituent-centric approach is often the first step to identifying and prioritizing digital government enhancements.
Customers Come First
If government is truly for the people and by the people, then how technology impacts constituents’ access to government services should be the first consideration for any new technology implementation or process change. What are constituents’ pain points and how can their government interactions be streamlined? When this thinking influences digital strategies, examples such as the three outlined below become easily apparent.1. A Business Moment
A constituent with a great idea for a business decides to take the leap into entrepreneurship. Among her first tasks is registering her business with state authorities. When she goes online to complete the registration, she discovers the chore will require hours of work to complete multiple government agencies’ forms, several of which ask for information she has already submitted on previous forms.
When you pause and take a “customer-first” approach, it is easy to see how a digital solution might help solve the entrepreneur’s frustration. That is exactly what happened in Maryland, which assembled four agencies that had collected business registration information separately. The conversation directed decision-makers to a “business one-stop” solution. Developing a single, multi-level online business registration service, the agencies merged their forms and information into one portal. Besides collecting a business’ information just once, the agencies worked together to develop a streamlined user interface. With this citizen-centric change, today nearly 80 percent of all general and sole proprietorships are filed online using the business one-stop solution versus submitting paper forms.
2. A Mobile Moment
Between work, children’s activities and running a household, a single dad of three has a lot to juggle. He needs to renew his driver’s license, but can’t take off work to stand in line at the DMV office and doesn’t have Internet access at home. His only option is to renew his license online using his smartphone.
Mobile devices represent more than one-third of the traffic on U.S. government websites, and more than 40 percent of smartphone owners are using those devices to access government services or information, according to a report released in early 2016 by the IBM Center for the Business of Government. With data like this supporting the widespread use of mobile devices, government must add mobile to its list of considerations when taking a citizen-centric approach.
While native mobile apps still play a role for some agencies, constituents also expect responsive design, which adapts a website to the smartphone, tablet or other device they may be using. It is also important to consider the growing population of smartphone-dependent customers who have little to no other means for accessing the Internet. Serving this constituency may require rethinking what data an agency really needs to capture, or determining how to reconfigure lengthy forms so they can be completed on a small screen.
These were just some of the considerations Alabama recently took into account when it developed one of the country’s first digital driver’s licenses. Budget cuts had forced the closure of several Department of Motor Vehicle offices, and wait times at the DMV were growing longer and longer. The department worked to relieve wait times by implementing an online driver’s license renewal solution. Upon completing the steps of the digital service, drivers are emailed a digital license that formats to a variety of digital wallets, such as Apple Wallet (formerly known as Passbook).
3. A Future Moment
A tech-savvy family embraces the latest technology. Family members were excited about the launch of Amazon Echo, and quickly incorporated it into their daily lives for music and audiobook listening, making to-do lists, and getting weather and traffic reports before setting out each morning.
It may not be long before digital personal assistants, like Amazon Echo, will replace keyboards, screens and the graphical user interface as we know it as the primary conduits for online interactions.
“Conversational user interface,” also called “no user interface,” is already operational in some states. Mississippi, for example, recently enhanced its website, MS.gov, by integrating Amazon Echo’s “Ask Alexa” voice-driven capability, or “skill.” Using the skill, a citizen might say, “Alexa, ask Mississippi when my driver’s license expires,” or “Alexa, ask Mississippi what the phone number is for the Department of Revenue.”
The technology holds tremendous potential for simplifying citizen and business interactions, and should be a component of forward-looking strategies at all levels of government.
To achieve digital transformation, government must put itself in the shoes of the constituents they serve. Agency personnel must work together to transcend the status quo, concentrating first on the solutions that best serve constituents and finding ways to ramp up digital delivery. The result — streamlined delivery of government services, better service to the citizens and businesses they serve, and more efficient and accountable agencies — will be worth it.
Robert Knapp is Chief Operating Officer for NIC Inc., a provider of innovative digital government and secure payment processing solutions for more than 4,300 local, state and federal agencies across the United States. You may reach him at rknapp@egov.com. More information is available at www.egov.com.
