Two of my daughters became licensed drivers during this pandemic. Aside from the typical momma worries that accompany the idea of your teen behind the wheel, I also experienced the stereotypical long, drawn-out permit, road-test and licensing processes.
The classic DMV scene from Walt Disney’s Zootopia flashed in my head as we headed to join the lines at our local DMV. I mused about how much easier today’s process could be if intelligent technology was used to streamline the experience.
Our expectations as citizens receiving services are escalating, shaped by consumer experiences that are increasingly more efficient, personalized, and predictive. The pandemic shone a spotlight on how critical the transformation of citizen services is, from unemployment to health tracing. We need to better meet citizen needs, reduce the burden on the agencies and overall offer more intelligent, effective experiences.
Intelligent citizen services is really about working smarter rather than harder—making technology investments earn their keep through efficiencies while providing a better user experience.
Freeing human employees to do what they do best
Using smart technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) makes sense for state and municipal governments because their operations are highly process-driven.
With intelligent citizen services, smart machines can take over rote tasks, helping citizens digitally self-serve on everything from online driver’s license renewal to child support payments. With machines handling the mundane requests, human employees are freed to help consumers with more complex or nuanced requests.
Lessening citizen stress during COVID-19
Accenture helped a state workforce agency whose call volume increased by 1,000% when COVID-19 struck. Teams were trying to field 200,000 calls per day regarding unemployment concerns. Accenture assisted the agency in deploying 300 agents into a cloud-based call center within two weeks. We also created a new virtual chatbot to answer frequently asked questions and reduce the need for human agents to handle every call. It handled one million messages in just 13 days.
Conversational AI can reduce low-end, repetitive tasks by 20%—a full day a week for workers. Think about the possibilities that creates for many agencies to better serve citizens.
Putting citizens at the center
By allowing machines to focus on manual task execution, government employees can focus more on an individual’s service experience. That’s key because our consumer experiences with companies like Amazon are coloring expectations for any experience—from paying our water bill to obtaining a birth certificate. Those heightened service expectations move success beyond the traditional metrics of efficiency or speed into how people feel about the experiences they have. Was it speedy? Error-free? Was the outcome what they expected or better?
The beauty of adding intelligence to citizen services is that agencies can begin to collect data that helps them not only gauge the success of a citizen’s experience but also improve it the next time around. Using AI and analytics to generate insights from the data collected, government agencies can begin to anticipate citizen needs more accurately for better service over time. Consumer companies are accustomed to user-centered design but governments are just beginning to introduce it. I believe we’ll see huge improvements in the delivery of citizen services over the next several years as a result.
Trust comes to the fore
There’s a spectrum of intelligence, from very simple automation to AI-assisted decisions. As you move toward the more intelligent end of that spectrum, data oversight and governance become more important. Security and privacy are paramount because the only way intelligent citizen services succeed is with the trust and cooperation of citizens.
Employee trust is also key. Workers need to trust they will be provided opportunities to learn the digital skills needed for more sustainable jobs.
Success factors for state and local governments
Accenture provides a significant percentage of U.S. state governments with intelligent citizen services, so we have good experience and insights to share on what boosts success. I can’t cover them all here, but a few of the biggest ones are:
- Scale, scale, scale. Many organizations want small AI pilots without a larger strategy. That doesn’t work in the long term. To reap maximum value, you need a strategy for AI across an agency. Then you can plan for a rollout based on quick wins.
- Get your data house in order. Intelligent citizen services depend on data, much of which will be generated moving forward. But if you can clean up your historical data and use it, it will put you that much further ahead.
- Start with outcomes. To know what success looks like, you have to know what your citizens value and desire from every interaction. Start with what you need to achieve and work backwards from there.
As we move beyond the pandemic, I don’t believe citizen expectations will revert to what they were pre-pandemic. We’ve all gotten used to a more digital way of life. Convenience, ease and accuracy are now table stakes. Intelligence, empathy and predictive care have become the differentiators. Trust overlays it all. As for me, I have five more years until my youngest daughter takes the wheel, and I can only imagine how different the licensing process will be by then, as Intelligent citizen services transforms the age-old stereotype of the DMV experience.
Julieann Brazeal is a Managing Director and Operations Business Lead for the US South and the Global Energy Practice with Accenture. With 25 years of experience transforming global business services and a PhD in Adult Learning, she is passionate about the use of innovation to empower people to deliver value in new ways.