Hi Neicole,

Thank you so much for the thoughtful comment. I appreciate you taking the time to write it.

While I do understand and acknowledge the extraordinary constraints placed upon most government agencies, I still believe that “most governmental agencies do not think of their citizens as customers.” Why? Because I believe that if you want to see what is important to someone you look at what they do, not what they say (at least overall). The same is true of organizations.

An example of what I mean: So, Agency X needs each citizen to fill out Form A — that’s the law. But that doesn’t excuse why the agent didn’t stand up to greet you when you came in… or why the agent handed you the form and said “here, fill out both sides” instead of “Please fill out both sides of the form, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.” This is simple training and could cost essentially nothing.

My point: There are so many things that government agencies could do, even within their constraints, and many of them don’t. As you point out in your comment, there are a lot of reasons for this, and I am certainly painting with a broad brush right now. However, I still believe that overall the lack of accountability has a lot to do with why govt agencies do not try to do even the things they can.

My hats off to the people who work at these agencies who really try to do the best with what they have! Thanks again for the great comment.

Your post is timely because I just wrapped up a project ghost-writing a paper for a large tech firm about the experiences agencies across the country have had trying to upgrade their IT systems to provide better service to constituents. The paper was based on a survey done of heads of agencies in all the states.

I might not have known before working on this paper, but now I can tell you it’s ALL about delivering better customer service and serving constituents better, within the budgetary constraints. After reviewing the extensive study, reading comments from agency staff, and writing the paper, it’s clear that employees and heads of these agencies care as much about serving their customers as businesses do.

They have huge challenges, though: threading a ton of regulations, coordinating across multiple agencies, integrating disparate technical systems–many of them outdated.

It’s a fact that as businesses get bigger, they get less efficient. Having worked at start ups and large companies, I’ve seen it myself. Companies, such as defense contractors, that are hampered by extensive regulations are also less efficient than companies that aren’t in the government sphere.

So, in government agencies, you essentially have the worst of all worlds: they are essentially very large ‘companies’ that are heavily regulated with tight budget constraints that must coordinate closely with other very large companies (in the form of other agencies).

It doesn’t make it easy to deliver the best service. But that doesn’t mean the employees don’t care and aren’t trying.

Thanks for the comment Pam! Status quo is right. We had an experience recently where a govt employee was trying to help some colleagues figure out a business license issue. The person had been working with them for days, then in the middle of a phone call, the employee’s supervisor took the phone from the employee and told my colleague that his department would not be providing them anything and could not be of any further help. It could have been a great experience and such an easy win for government.

While I don’t think customer service alone will save government I do believe customer service must start to be a thought and something that is offered if they want to get the support of the majority.