Recommendations for GX focus, development, and accountability

I originally published this post on Medium. I copied it here in May 2024 to keep it alongside my other content.

Back in June consultant (and former GSA administrator) Martha Dorris (Dorris Consulting International) provided testimony in a Congressional hearing on development of Customer Experience (CX) and summarized her commentary (PDF) with some specific recommendations for leaders, which I’ve paraphrased below (using a slant toward local government rather than federal):

• Identify which top-level agency leader is responsible for customer experiences overall; ensure it reports up to the chief executive
• Adopt a CX Maturity Model to guide agency efforts (models from the GSA and Qualtrics are popular, but there are many more)
• Develop a CX Report Card (based on the Maturity Model) to track CX developments over time, noting successes, improvements, and weaknesses

Using the CX Report Card as a tool, agencies need to:

1. Assess perceived quality of customer experience via real customer feedback
2. Ensure agency strategic priorities address real CX needs
3. Monitor growth in digital services over time
4. Deepen customer knowledge within agency teams
5. Utilize Human Centered Design (HCD) techniques and User Experience (UX) models when crafting products or services
6. Build multi-channel / omni-channel delivery models to meet customers where they are
7. Increase (or maintain) customer trust in agency services
8. Honor community equity and inclusivity needs when creating (or upgrading) services

I know there’s more to learn here, and I’m just getting started. But I appreciated Ms. Dorris summarizing this for the Senate committee, and I wanted to nail it down in a shorter list for future reference.

---

Disclaimer: This post does not represent the opinions or policies of my current or former employers nor any organization or person I may assist as a consultant.