City looks to enhance customer experience with data analytics
Corona, California MattGush/Getty Images
Corona, California, used a tool driven by artificial intelligence to work out where users were getting stuck or frustrated, in a bid to improve their experience.
Residents prefer by a 2-to-1 margin to access government services digitally, according to a survey last year across all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
The states in the McKinsey & Company survey that performed best in customer satisfaction also spent around twice as much per capita on technology as states that performed worst. Ashka Dave, co-author of the report and an associate partner in McKinsey’s digital practice, said at the time that improving customer service through digitization has a “halo effect” as it increases trust and civic engagement, while decreasing costs “and actually improving the appeal of your state,” she said.
Digitization can be especially important for city governments, which are increasingly offering more and more online services to their residents, including the ability to apply for permits, pay bills, engage with local lawmakers, and submit architectural plans and police reports.
But it can be difficult to measure customer experience, especially on an official government website, which may be old and backed by legacy technology. States and localities have struggled to ascertain where there are gaps in online activities that need to be plugged.
Corona, California, is looking to change that by embracing analytics as it builds out its new website, where residents can engage with 22 departments and carry out a variety of tasks.
Specifically, the city will measure users’ experience to identify signals of frustration like error clicks, rage clicks and thrashes of the mouse, and watch visual replays of those users’ anonymized sessions. The analytics tool from the experience management company Qualtrics uses artificial intelligence to identify the most relevant sessions to be replayed for city officials, who then can establish what is going wrong for users.
In addition to the tracking and analytics technology, users can also fill out micro surveys to provide direct feedback to Corona about issues they are having on the website as it rolls out. Corona Chief Information Officer Chris McMasters described the tracking and micro surveys as the passive and active way of engaging users.
“By embedding the technology, we can see what you're doing without [you] telling us, but also the active way of engaging people to say, ‘Hey, there's stuff going on, click over here and send us something, we'll get to it right away,’” he said.
On the back end, McMasters and his IT colleagues have access to data dashboards that visualize the vast amount of information collected and help them identify any patterns. The dashboard can keep track of the number of rage clicks on individual pages and allow officials to identify where more work is needed. It is a “whole new revelation of how we build our services,” he said.
McMasters said improving user experience should be the one of the top priorities as governments consider further digitizing their operations and upgrading their websites. Being “customer-centric” is key, he said, especially as those customers increasingly expect an experience like that which they receive from Amazon, Uber and other technology companies.
Being willing to take risks with these sorts of endeavors is also important, he said.
“Those partnerships—working with the private sector and bringing that thought process to the world of government—is a huge thing,” McMasters said. “We wouldn't be able to do these types of projects without their support.”
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