These states have cracked the customer experience code
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COMMENTARY | By implementing enterprise customer experience programs, New York and Maryland are improving service, lowering operating costs and building back trust with constituents.
Customer experience, or CX, is the idea that the most effective organizations are those that put their customers’ needs, experiences and emotions at the heart of their business. It’s a relatively simple idea that turns out to be hard in practice, particularly in larger, complex organizations, especially in the public sector.
Government agencies typically administer programs organized by agency. But constituents don't think in terms of government bureaucracy. They think about what they need to help solve a problem.
For example, a family experiencing financial shock or loss of property due to a natural disaster needs relief and support. But when looking to government for support, they instead find a confusing network of agencies, programs, and systems that cost time, money, and emotional effort.
The federal government has taken significant steps to adopt a more customer-centric approach to service delivery. Several states are also doubling down on their investments in customer-centric government. They have found that improving service and driving efficiencies are not in conflict, but are mutually reinforcing.
New York
Tonya Webster was appointed the nation’s first Chief Customer Experience Officer in Sept. 2023 as part of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s efforts to modernize government and build trust among Empire State residents. Earlier that year, Hochul announced the creation of this position in her State of the State address, then unveiled Webster, a seasoned executive who led CX transformations in healthcare, finance and media.
Webster recognized success would rely heavily on the state’s culture — and critically — identifying ways to help promote a culture where the customer’s experience is front-and center for every NY employee.
Webster started her tenure by consulting with agency leads, conducting listening tours among state workers, and holding multiple sessions with customers themselves. What she found was a hunger for her office, the perspective it brings and the good it could do.
“Agencies across New York are eager to improve how they serve the public, and New Yorkers rightfully expect a government that is efficient, accessible, and responsive,” said Webster. “Our focus now is on scaling these efforts effectively — determining where we can drive the most impact and ensuring our solutions are sustainable.”
To address that demand and provide enablement at scale, her office launched a comprehensive set of resources known as “NYX,” or New York Experience.
NYX serves two core purposes. First, it communicates to taxpayers the nature of this work, why it’s important to them and how they’ve helped — including case studies and a detailed list of accomplishments. Second, it provides guidance for agency practitioners, creating a set of off-the-shelf tools that supports agencies at scale. This includes a playbook of 12 “plays” such as web accessibility, design and style standards, and building a CX team.
The office’s impact speaks for itself. It has helped improve the enrollment and shopping experience for food insecure New Yorkers; accelerated access to tax credits; expanded access to child care assistance; and built more user-friendly and equitable state websites. Notably, this was accomplished without sweeping changes to law and policy.
New York also exemplifies how good service and efficient government go hand in hand.
“By making it easier for New Yorkers to access what they need, we’re also streamlining operations, cutting costs, and reducing inefficiencies. That’s the cherry on top: good service doesn’t just help the public — it builds a government that works better for everyone,” said Webster.
Maryland
In Aug. 2023, Gov. Wes Moore announced a series of actions to modernize technology and improve resident services with the appointment of the state’s first ever chief technology officer, chief digital experience officer, artificial intelligence advisor, and director of accessibility.
These appointments amplified the ecosystem within the Maryland Department of Information Technology to focus on usability, equity and accessibility in the digital CX.
Chief Digital Experience Officer Marcy Jacobs has focused not on any one specific project or technology. Instead, her first year has focused on building capacity with a robust, cross-functional organization in the vein of the U.S. Digital Service and U.S. Veterans Affairs Digital Service teams she helped build.
She has hired senior directors in engineering, service and user experience design, product management, web experience, and strategic investments. In doing so, she has established the infrastructure to help agencies identify user needs, accessibility gaps and pain points in the customer experience.
Jacobs recognizes that many customer experiences start “analog.” "When we start to focus on delivering outcomes for users, rather than just delivering technology systems, we will uncover service delivery challenges that aren’t about technology at all, including policy, communication, and process problems,” she continued.
According to Jacobs, there’s no lack of demand for her team’s services among partner agencies. Instead, it’s about identifying where they can have the most impact, which often includes helping agency leaders refocus on diagnosing the right problems before jumping into potential solutions. The former starts with a human-centered design approach that places a premium on user needs rather than system requirements.
“We are shifting from a project approach to a product approach,” Jacobs said. “In a product model, systems are funded and managed as a tool for program or service delivery, not as ‘technology projects.’ In this model, products are supported permanently by a team that works hand-in-hand with users to iteratively improve the system and ensure it remains effective. It’s less costly, less risky and faster to deliver value."
Rather than a multiyear, multimillion dollar project to deliver a “new” maryland.gov, for example, MDDS has adopted agile approaches that integrate user testing and feedback across the product lifecycle.
One recent example of her team’s work was the deployment of a new global header and footer on maryland.gov, which promotes a cohesive user experience across its digital front door.
This work sets the stage to deploy analytics and adopt a new content management system, both of which are critical toward future CX improvements. It also coincides with the team’s plain language initiative, helping agencies speak the language of their customers, and not the language of government.
CX as a Vehicle of Innovation
Most consider innovation in government to occur at the policymaking level — through the laws, orders, regulations and rules that define the four corners of government programs.
However, as many thought leaders have recently argued, innovation is most needed in building state capacity around the implementation of those policies. New York and Maryland offer blueprints on how building CX into the enterprise can bring in the data and insights needed to achieve that goal.