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IN THE NEWS

Customer Experience Playbook
 

The plays will help agencies:

  1. Understand the current state of customer satisfaction and experience.

  2. Determine the culture and appetite for change.

  3. Build a customer-centric culture across the organization.

  4. Create a customer strategy that identifies service gaps and plans to fill them.

  5. Assign a single office or role to focus on customer experience.

  6. Use design thinking and agile practices to develop, test and deploy the experience of the future.

  7. Develop a business case to justify resource investment.

  8. Continually measure and monitor customer experience.

“The Customer Experience Playbook is the first government playbook to help guide executives and program managers in transforming services to their customers,” said Martha Dorris,  founder of Dorris Consulting International and one of the report authors.  “This sets the foundation for a common understanding of the basic concepts of CX at all levels of government.”

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How Digital Services Engagement Centers Play Crucial Role in the Customer Experience
 
Emerging customer-engagement technologies like virtual assistants can tailor information based on the customer’s input of information or keywords. Based on insights contained in the data, DSEC teams can proactively anticipate a customer’s intentions and can generate a personalized opener, for example: "I see your recent transaction was not successful, would you like me to connect you with an adviser to discuss this?" Smart apps can reach out while the customer is active online or on their app, using proactive chat or offering video interaction. Read More
How Digital Services Engagement Centers Play Crucial Role in the Customer Experience
 
Emerging customer-engagement technologies like virtual assistants can tailor information based on the customer’s input of information or keywords. Based on insights contained in the data, DSEC teams can proactively anticipate a customer’s intentions and can generate a personalized opener, for example: "I see your recent transaction was not successful, would you like me to connect you with an adviser to discuss this?" Smart apps can reach out while the customer is active online or on their app, using proactive chat or offering video interaction. Read More
Delivering an Efficient Citizen-Centric Government
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Agencies should remember that 75 percent of all transactions begin online. Contact centers, however, are still critical to overall service levels. Agencies need to manage the citizen's experience by focusing on the entire journey, not just touchpoint by touchpoint.
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Not only is the government beginning to address CX issues, government and industry are partnering to bring visibility and support to those in government who are trying to improve the experience.  While there are many areas where we need to focus some attention, there are some important accomplishments that should be recognized. As stated by President-elect Trump, creating a government that works for citizens should provide good service. Here are a few of the many accomplishments: Read More
Be ready to tell your story using data, testimonials, customer feedback, and budgets. Data is the best way to remove emotion from the conversation. It’s difficult to argue if your data supports the success of your program. Of course, if you are trying to manipulate the data in a way to tell your story, eventually that will be discovered. I have seen incoming Administrations not believe the data but if you have a reasonable approach to the way you compute different measures, the issue may be far different than whether the program is important or not. Read More
September 2015, FCW | Martha Dorris is leaving GSA
 
"I've had an entrepreneurial kind of mindset and spirit for a long time," Dorris said, noting that she comes from a family of small business owners. While she's been careful to "not get too far ahead of myself" before formally exiting government, a firm of her own is on the drawing board -- with customer experience, acquisition and digital service all very much part of the business plan. Read More
Seven Steps to Becoming a CX Leader in Government | February 29, 2016
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Whether you work at a contact center answering customer calls about a government service or are a senior executive who understands the implications of not delivering first class service to the public, there are ways you can become a leader in improving customer experience.  Read More
Martha Dorris Wins the 2015 Frank Award
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Mary Davie at the 2015 Management of Change Conference

 

“The John J. Frank Award recognizes outstanding leadership contributions in government.  The award is named after the late John J. Franke, a Kansas native whose first government service was as a Marine in Korea.  John J. Franke rose from a county commissioner to become Regional Administrator of EPA and later service as Assistant Secretary for Administration at the Department of Agriculture.  He was then appointed Director of the Federal Quality Institute, where he championed the cause of good government.  His service to the country was cut short by his untimely death in 1991 after a courageous battle with cancer.

…

This year’s winner is an acknowledged thought leader and committed public servant who encourages collaboration and supports her colleagues in taking risks to improve the government customer experience.  She’s held in high regard at all levels of US government, as well as abroad, due to her extensive outreach and collaboration efforts with other governments.  Her name is synonymous with good government.

As a senior government official at GSA, she has provided executive leadership and been at the forefront of many initiatives that enable the federal government to efficiently and effectively deliver information and services to the public.  She led the creation of solutions that support integrated delivery of government information to citizens, businesses and government in English and Spanish via the Internet, phone, and in print including USA.gov, GobiernoUSA.gov, and kids.gov as well as 1-800-FED INFO and many social media channels.  She drove the creation and implementation of DigitalGov Search, which is used by over 1500 government websites free of charge.  It has saved agencies millions of dollars while improving their customers’ experience.

 

In addition to her day job, Martha has also spent many hours learning from and building bridges to the international government technology community.  For many years, she represented the United States as a member of the International Council for information technology (IT) in Government Administration (ICA). 

 

Martha has also been a long-time member of ACT-IAC.  Her engagement began many years ago, when our organization was still known as the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils (FGIPC).  She has participated in planning and implementing many of our activities over the years.  She was part of the strategic planning process that changed the organization from FGIPC to ACT.  And she was an exceptional leader of the organization.  She served on the ACT Board of Directors and was elected as the ACT President.

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Martha Dorris | 2015 Process Improvement
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With over 30 years of government experience at the U.S. General Services Administration, Martha provided leadership in acquisition oversight, policy and citizen services. She spent the last 10 years leading the Office of Citizen Services implementing programs to provide the public with an integrated experience when accessing government information through USA.gov, GobiernoUSA.gov; the National Contact Center and through social media in English and Spanish. She led the creation and implementation of DigitalGov Search which is used across 1,500 government websites to provide a commercial-grade search experience to the public on government websites. Last year, OCSIT touched the public over 1.2 billion times.  Read More
ACT-IAC Awards John J. Franke Award to Martha Dorris of General Service Administration
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ACT President Rick Holgate said, “Throughout her career Martha Dorris has gone above and beyond the requirements of her job to promote collaboration, excellence and innovation to produce a more effective and efficient government. ACT-IAC is honored to present her with the 2015 John J. Franke Award.” Read More
Federal Faces: Martha Dorris
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Dorris has been a driving force behind using technology to help citizens more easily obtain federal government services and information — whether the contact comes through a Web site, e-mail, telephone calls or social media. Dorris created a brand and a following for USA.gov and the ­Spanish-language version, ­GobiernoUSA.gov, the most comprehensive federal Web portals for government information and services. These sites received 50 million visits in fiscal 2012. Links and information on the USA.gov FAQ page, Answers.USA.gov, help answer the top 10 questions from the public, such as how small businesses can find resources, how to look for a job and how to get or replace a Social Security card. Read More
2013 Service to American Medal Finalist
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Dorris has overseen the creation of Challenge.gov, a crowdsourcing platform that helps agencies solve problems, and launched USASearch, a powerful, commercial-grade Internet search engine used on agency websites. USASearch enables users to search an agency’s information in one place, including documents, images and social media sites. USASearch answers 8 million questions a month, displaying government-centric results. Read More
Martha Dorris propels GSA into a new-media age
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“She is constantly traveling at about 100 miles an hour,” said Kenneth Allen, executive director of the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council. “She never slows down for a minute, and not just in her professional life. She’s constantly on the go. I don’t think Martha knows how to slow down and rest. I’m not sure when she sleeps.” Read More
GSA Teaches Citizen Engagement
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Dorris shared one idea with us today. She admitted that citizen engagement can often feel intangible, making it a hard sell to get your agency to prioritize it. However, if you can measure how you’re doing with engagement now, and set measurable goals for the future, you are more likely to get people interested in the initiative. Read More
Federal News Radio | Martha Dorris and Ira Hobbs
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Martha Dorris, deputy associate administrator at GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies and ACT-IAC Small Business Conference Government chair, and Ira Hobbs, principal at Hobbs & Hobbs and former chief information officer at the Treasury Department and ACT-IAC SBC industry chair, tell In Depth with Francis Rose small business could hold the keys to success for your next IT project. Listen Here
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