As a result, in July 2012, Education’s office of Federal Student Aid launched StudentAid.gov, one of the first agency websites to have a fully mobile-responsive design platform, said Abraham Marinez, chief of staff for FSA’s Customer Experience Office. Consumers now have access to FSA’s content anywhere, anytime and from any device.

More: Report: Improving Citizen Service Delivery

“We were one of the very few agencies back in 2012, when we launched, that had an actual responsive design site,” Marinez said. “That is how we responded to Executive Order 13571 and the Digital Government Strategy,” another White House initiative aimed at delivering better services to the public.

FSA is the largest provider of student financial aid, providing more than $150 billion in federal grants, loans, and work-study funds to help more than 13 million students pay for college or career school. From the inception of FSA’s Customer Experience Office in 2010, officials looked for ways to streamline services. At the time, FSA offered multiple websites with financial aid information tailored to different audiences, making it difficult for consumers to find information.

In fact, at one point FSA had 14 separate student-facing websites containing federal financial aid information, Brenda Wensil, FSA’s chief customer experience officer wrote in a 2013 blog post. FSA consolidated the content from more than 14 sites and retired five, saving the office and taxpayers $1.6 million, Wensil said.

Related content went into StudentAid.gov, which was based on a user-centric design approach. “We actually went out and talked with students about what they wanted in the service,” Marinez said. The vendor developing StudentAid.gov also shared initial designs, allowing the FSA team to involve the customers early in the design process so the final product would better meet the consumers’ needs.

FSA takes user feedback seriously, Marinez said. For instance, students wanted to track their loans and financial history on StudentAid.gov, information that is now in The National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) on NSLDS.ed.gov. Last May, FSA made that a feature within StudentAid.gov, placing a login button on the upper right side of the page so students can access their financial and loan history. Plus the information can be accessed via mobile devices while the information on the NSLDS website is not currently optimized for mobile. Agencies looking to improve their customer experience must have support from senior management and build the right team with a variety of disciplines, Marinez said. A small team comprised of writers, developers, mobile experts, project managers, technology experts and others who were passionate about the project helped launch StudentAid.gov.

Another key to success is to listen to what the customers are saying via customer satisfaction surveys on the website, tracking of social media to see what consumers like and don’t like and the use of Google Analytics. As of March 16, 2015, 62 million visitors have visited the site. “We have a team that looks at customer feedback on a monthly basis,” Marinez said.

USCIS adopts customer first strategy

The Homeland Security Department’s U.S Citzenship and Immigration Services’ Verification Division has adopted a “customer first” approach as it enhances the citizen and workers’ personal experience through E-Verify, the web-based system set up to assist employers in verifying eligibility of employees — both U.S. and foreign citizens — working in the U.S.

Currently over 600,000 employers are enrolled in E-Verify with 1,500 companies signing up each week. Moreover, 1.5 million worksites are using E-Verify, and in 2014 the agency processed 20 million inquirers. E-Verify compares the information on an employee I-9 form with Social Security Administration and DHS records.

Initially, the division did not have the IT business tools that would allow it to scale and operate in an efficient manner on a daily basis. “We have crossed that bridge over the last couple of years,” said a senior leader within the Verification Division who requested anonymity.

Last year, the division implemented a new telephony system that improved call routing significantly, even offering some self-service capabilities. Previously, call systems were located in three of the agency’s larger offices and managed separately. There was no automatic feed based on available call agents. With the new telephony system regardless of where the call agent is located, based on user roles, the call is routed to the first available call agent.

The Verification Division also launched a customer relationship management tool that gives agents more transparency and better information about employer companies. For example, they see the history of the company and know right away if the company has any monitoring and compliance issues. Plus, the telephony system and CRM tool have been integrated, further enhancing the customer experience and allowing the agency to maximize resources.

One of challenges the division faces is developing better metrics that gives the team a better pulse on how well the program is performing as the IT infrastructure improves and the E-Verify program expands. So USCIS is setting up a data analytics and business intelligence infrastructure to support the day-to-day productivity of the status verification, call center operations and monitoring and compliance teams.

“It is almost like building a pyramid in knowing your mission. You have to invoke in employees a sense of team work and customer first culture,” the USCIS official said.

Bonus: Get more insights into improving your agency’s customer service with our free report, “Transforming the citizen experience.” Click here to download.

“We are excited about this as a tool and we are in the midst of really ramping up a pilot at several different agencies,” Danzig said at the 2015 Government Executive Customer Experience Summit March 24, in Washington, D.C. “We would be collecting feedback across all government services – kind of like a Yelp for federal government.”

The pilot would be limited at first to just a few websites and services, Danzig said, and OMB is working with the General Services Administration to develop the initial feedback button.

The tool would give agencies a real-time insight into how agency customers are responding to their experiences, whether it’s on a website or using a service such as the security screening process at the Transportation Security Administration or trips to national parks. Agency officials would be able to react fast enough to solve problems as they occur, Danzig said.

At TSA, the agency could compare millions of customer experiences a day across hundreds of airports, data that could lead to further innovation and improvement in the customer experience, she said.

She compared the concept to grades from health inspectors in New York City and how those empower consumers to make better choices while increasing overall health.

If the pilot proves successful the administration has included funding in its fiscal 2016 budget proposal to expand the review system across government, according to Danzig.

“That’s the intent of the federal feedback button is that there would be some more visible representation of what customer satisfaction looks like. And I think that could be an incredibly powerful tool,” Danzig said.

He tweeted his ongoing frustration American Airlines and TSA PreCheck, and in a few minutes Transportation Security Administration spokesman Ross Feinstein reached out to him and worked out the ongoing problem to get Walker through the screening checkpoint.

For people not used to dealing directly with federal agencies on social media, Feinstein said TSA now just sees it as the tip of the spear for an improved customer experience.

“We work very closely with the airlines, especially the US airlines, the major ones of course. If we can work together to help troubleshoot an issue, we will be glad to do that,” Feinstein said. He said the agency – which has hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – is continuing to expand their presence in order to educate travelers and help solve their problems.

Bonus: Get more insights into improving your agency’s customer service with our free report, “Transforming the citizen experience.”Click here to download.

Earlier this year, a delay in an airport shuttle caused the closure of a TSA checkpoint, and the agency tweeted live updates for passengers until they were able to reopen.

“It’s another great way that we can help work with passengers and learn their concerns. Ultimately, if we fix an issue that they have, then the next experience they have is just that much better,” Feinstein said.

The Transportation Security Administration has been shifting from a one-size-fits-all screening approach to a risk-based model – and dramatically improving the customer experience at the same time.

“We have also tried to expand our customer service efforts, as well. Our officers do receive customer service training, supervisors get customer service training and training in interacting with the general public, as well,” Feinstein said.

Tight budgets have also placed a focus on educating passengers about prohibited items, the screening process and airline safety in order to reduce delays at checkpoints and process the more than 1.8 million people a day who use the airports.

Since TSA Pre-check began in 2011, complaints regarding wait times at airports have gone down 25 percent, according to the agency. The program has expanded to more than 600 security lanes at 125 airports across the country.

The agency has also been at work creating, upgrading and promoting its MyTSA mobile application, which offers wait times at airports, information about traveling and a searchable “can I bring that?” tool that allows passengers to check on the legality of obscure items.

“We don’t want them to get in trouble, we don’t want them being arrested, we don’t want them to be fined by the TSA – we want to ensure that at the end of the day, they can go through the checkpoint quickly,” he said.

The extra effort is paying off as well: in 2014 fewer than 0.32 percent of passengers waited more than 20 minutes to get through a TSA screening checkpoint, Feinstein said.

“Everything we do in TSA now, is risk-based and intelligence-driven, using the best of the intelligence community and changing our procedures and security posture, based on that real-time intelligence,” Feinstein said. “. It’s a real success for everyone.”

The American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) is proposing the government organize around important events in taxpayers’ lives in order to reduce duplicative programs and better serve customers.

“The principle is thinking about how the government interacts with its constituents in ways that are not bound by organizational structure,” said Rick Holgate, government chair of ACT-IAC. Life events are easier to understand than each agency and its mission, he added.

In a report released November, 2014, ACT-IAC said the system would also benefit government workers by helping to alleviate the conflicting rules, duplicative activities and disruptive political forces that can work to undermine efficient delivery of citizen services.

“Service backlogs and mismanaged customer experiences are leaving the public asking what their tax dollars are really getting them. Likewise, byzantine procedures and restrictive policies are demoralizing public servants, who entered government because they wanted to make a difference but can’t find a way through organizational barriers,” according to the report.

Bonus: Get more insights into improving your agency’s customer service with our free report, “Transforming the citizen experience.”Click here to download.

While agencies would remain organized as they were, agencies would instead pool their services and resources around developing end-to-end tools for taxpayers experiencing a life event. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an example of an agency structured entirely around natural disasters and coordinating resources for survivors.

But other life events include the birth of a child, change in employment status, serious injury, home purchase or even deciding to pursue a college degree, according to the report.

USA.gov is an early example of that concept, but agencies will need a much larger and robust effort to bring all the resources a citizen needs to one destination or portal, Holgate said.

A government services model based around life events would also benefit agencies by:

• Building trust in government services by making those services easier to find, navigate and use.

• Expanding the resources available to deliver specific services as agencies partner to deliver similar services and saving the agencies involved time and money.

• Creating a 21st century service centered around the digital delivery of services and agile development of future tools to deliver those services.

The life-event approach will require a governmentwide effort and significant process reform in order to establish a foothold, according to Dan Chenok, ACT-IAC industry chair.

But first agencies must tackle a culture that is resistant to sharing resources, IT architecture and stakeholder groups and instead form a collaborative environment centered around the customer.

“It’s not an insurmountable obstacle, but it requires the government to develop significant cross-agency collaboration and commitment,” Chenok said.

On a scale of 1 to 100, the federal government scored 64, trailing nine private-sector classifications, and also behind local government.

Bonus: Get a free in-depth report on strategies for improving agency customer service. Click here to download.

Improving the citizen experience is a high-priority goal for agencies, but despite White House mandates in 2011 and 2015, progress has been slow and uneven, said Abby Herriman, senior vice president of delivery and innovation with HighPoint Global.

“We recognize there is a problem, and that is a good place to be,” she said.

Within the government, the Defense, Agriculture and State departments rate highly, with Treasury and Veterans Affairs far below. The U.S Postal Service, meanwhile, is leading much of the rest of government in innovative customer service improvements. It has benefited from private-sector competitive pressure that other agencies do not have, Herriman said.