The emphasis on a government customer experience (CX) that matches or exceeds that of the private sector is not new, but new advances in technology developments, particularly cloud, are giving agencies an unprecedented ability to understand and enhance all aspects of customer engagement. The latest cloud-based tools also have profound implications for the employee experience. In fact, improving CX begins with improving the employee experience, because engaged employees deliver topnotch customer service. Learn the latest insights from industry thought leaders in customer experience in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government® report.
Transforming Government Services
“Government is Fundamental to the latest zeitgeist, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals that, when achieved, ensure a prosperous future for all countries — goals that inspire us here at Salesforce because of their strong alignment to our own core values. We value good health and well-being; sustainable cities and communities; and progressive industry, innovation and infrastructure. Achieving these values-centric goals requires organizations to (A) treat each citizen as a customer, (B) move from employee enablement to employee empowerment and (C) build strategic partnerships.”
Read more insights from Salesforce’s Senior Vice President of Global Government Solutions, Casey Coleman.
Reducing Time to Value with Cloud Applications
“Cloud Technology is fundamentally changing the way government agencies perform their missions, build thriving communities and protect the well-being of the people they serve. Cloud’s “clicks, not code” time-to-market — compared to more traditional data-center build-outs, coding and software testing timelines — helps agencies take a requirement from idea to application at an unprecedented rate. Cloud can co-exist with legacy infrastructure to unlock data that resides in back-office systems, deliver it across the enterprise and provide the agility needed to make it highly applicable to just about any mission need.”
Read more insights from Salesforce’s Senior Vice President of North America Public Sector, Rob Stein.
Understand API use in Modern IT: A Conversation with Shad Imam
“Agency IT teams need to rethink their roles from experts in legacy software and realize their potential as business enablers. By implementing an API-led approach to integration, broader teams can reuse APIs instead of writing custom integration code with every project. This in turn facilitates greater collaboration within the agency and enables other agencies to tap into their resources and capabilities. This new approach to integration ensures that agency systems are robust and flexible enough to support customer demands, maximize the impact of IT budgets and accelerate innovation by driving collaboration across the organization.”
Read more insights from this Q&A with Federal Region’s Director of Solutions Engineering, Shad Imam.
The Evolution of Cloud Security
“Cloud security will continue to evolve, and it will likely look very different in the coming years. Ultimately, security is not about protecting a system, it is about protecting data. Automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence are fueling the creation of data at speeds we’ve never experienced before. That’s why industry leaders like Salesforce are already exploring new ways of thinking about data and how it can be secured. Innovative ideas for protecting data, such as the zero trust model, are popping up all the time.”
Read more insights from Salesforce’s Principal Solutions Engineer, Matt Goodrich.
Enhancing the Employee Experience
“If an organization does not invest in developing a culture of empowerment in the same way it invests in developing a system of empowerment, a true customer-centric strategy will stay just beyond reach. Using cloud-based tools does more than simplify the way employees capture and act on information. Those tools offer an unparalleled opportunity for transparency and continuity, giving the head real data points to think about when looking for ways to transform the organization from the inside out.”
Read more insights from Salesforce Public Sector’s Senior Manager of Global Government, Darryl Peek.
Cloud’s Ongoing Impact on Mission Outcomes
“When an agency embarks on a journey to adopt innovative, flexible technology and transform the customer experience, it is essential for it to identify key decision-makers. These decision-makers should represent both the IT and business sides of the organization, share a commitment to improving the customer experience, and understand each other’s priorities and desired outcomes. This alignment ensures that each IT effort is tied to business outcomes and that each project from the business side is grounded in scalable, repeatable, safe best practices (i.e., no more rogue IT).”
Read more insights from Salesforce’s Regional Vice President of Customer Success, Jenny Berarducci.
AI Speeds Delivery of Government Services
“Agencies are facing exponential growth in the volume, velocity and variety of data they have. When people think of data, they typically think of highly structured text files, but today’s data includes unstructured text as well as audio, images and video. It’s an increasing challenge for agencies to figure out how to access and leverage that information. AI technology can help by finding and analyzing data so that people can apply those insights to the higher-value work of generating mission insights in a timely manner, improving government services and enabling customer engagement.”
Read more insights from Salesforce’s Vice President of National Security, Teresa Smetzer.
3 Data Myths Busted by Tableau a Conversation with Steve Spano
“There’s a fairly common misapprehension about implementing data analytics at scale: to succeed, you need a team of data scientists and highly specialized data workers. What you actually need is to turn your existing team into “data people.” To do this successfully, you need to build a strong data culture. Data-driven organizations have learned that it’s essential to promote a data-centric mindset across the entire organization. This empowers everyone to use analytics for deeper insight and understanding. Data is at the heart of decision-making, so leadership needs to be committed to making data culture an ongoing, organizational priority. It’s safe to say that once you’ve instilled a data culture, data is your super power.”
Read more insights from Tableau’s Regional Vice President for Public Sector, Steve Spano.
Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from these CX thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.
