| What: | How 21st Century IDEA set a higher standard for customer experience |
| When: | President Donald Trump signed the 21st Century IDEA into law in December 2018. |
| Why it matters: | The legislation pushed agencies to develop a digital-first approach to customer experience that laid down a blueprint for a more modern, digital-first federal government. It became essential at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
Politics
How 21st Century IDEA set a higher standard for customer experience
For more than a decade, customer experience teams across the federal government have focused on making sure agencies are providing a level of service with the private sector.
Much of that momentum began under the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) It gave agencies a blueprint for a more modern, digital-first customer experience in government. The law required agencies to move more of their public-facing services online, make federal websites more mobile-friendly and accept electronic signatures, to help wean agencies off paper-based processes.
“It was bipartisan, and it passed under the first Trump administration as a way to really firm up the importance of how should the government transform,” said Lee Becker, the former chief of staff for the Veterans Experience Office at the Department of Veterans Affairs, now the senior vice president and executive advisor for public sector and health care at Medallia. “The public is getting more used to doing things digitally, but what we’ve learned is that it can’t just be digital-only.”
President Donald Trump signed the 21st Century IDEA into law in December 2018, but without increased funding to roll out new tools, agencies initially stalled on implementation.
“I don’t think, in the first year-and-a-half, we made a ton of progress on 21st Century IDEA,” said Mike Hettinger, president and founding principal of the Hettinger Strategy Group, an early champion of the legislation.
Martha Dorris, a former GSA executive and the founder of Dorris Consulting International, said 21st Century IDEA’s real value was codifying some longstanding CX best practices that were already happening in some parts of the federal government.
The 2010 Plain Writing Act, for example, required federal agencies to set clear government communications that the public can easily understand
“It was rolling up a lot of stuff that had been in place in many places for many, many years,” Dorris said.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the implementation of the 21st Century IDEA. With many agency offices shuttered and mandatory telework, it forced many federal agencies to change their approach in how they deliver services to citizens.
Add to that Congress approving a windfall of emergency pandemic funds, all of these factors allowed agencies to jumpstart the modernization of their public-facing digital services.
“You throw in the pandemic, a couple of years after the legislation was signed into law, and that really accelerated the reliance on the sorts of things that 21st Century IDEA was all about,” Hettinger said.
The height of the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need for a digital-first approach to services, as agencies scrambled to move their operations online.
“COVID did put a spotlight on the need for agencies to provide better digital services, and agencies moved in that direction just out of sheer necessity,” said Erica Fensom, vice president of corporate affairs at DocuSign, said in a November 2023 interview. “The pandemic also exposed just how much room there is for improvement for agencies to provide better digital services, and how agile government agencies can be to change.”
The Office of Management and Budget doubled down on the IDEA Act when it laid out a 10-year digital experience roadmap and released long-awaited implementation guidance.
Agencies have about 100 actions to transform, evolve and standardize the citizens’ online experience that will drive the concept of “digital by default.” The 100 actions are broken down across seven broad categories, including branding, analytics, design and content.
While the first Trump administration made public service delivery a priority through the President’s Management Agenda, which made improved customer experience a cross-agency priority goal, the new administration has yet to lay out its management priorities.
“We haven’t really seen the second Trump administration have its eye on the ball with CX just yet,” Dorris said.
But between the OMB memo to implement the IDEA Act and now the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act (GSDIA), signed into law by former President Joe Biden in January, all this CX work is about to move to a new phase. The new legislation requires OMB and agencies to appoint a senior official to lead service delivery improvements governmentwide.
Dorris raised concerns that the legislation is focused too much on service delivery, rather than a broader focus on customer experience.
“A government service delivery lead is different than a customer experience person. Words matter,” she said. “You can’t have an office that just does voice of the customer or just does design work. It’s a bigger job than that, and I’m not sure people have had the resources or the authority to do it at the level that that law is asking for.”
Dorris said the legislation set up a clearer chain of command for who leads on customer experience improvements across the federal government.
“It sets up a governance structure that should help to be simplified. You’ve got CIOs, you’ve got digital services leads, digital experience leads and chief customer officers. You’ve got digital services teams. Who’s in charge of the service delivery, and who monitors it, looks at all the data across the agency and determines. Are you meeting the expectations of your customers? This law does that,” Dorris said.
Hettinger said the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act builds on the work of the 21st Century IDEA.
“Things are not going to be successful unless we have full leadership buy-in and leadership structure to support what you’re trying to do,” Hettinger said. “That’s why the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act is so important, because that’s about working with 21st Century IDEA. That’s about a structure at the agencies to ensure they’re paying attention and budgeting for 21st Century IDEA.”
Despite some CX momentum, agencies still have lots to do before meeting all the goals of the 21st Century IDEA and subsequent legislation.
“21st Century IDEA didn’t mandate more use of electronic signatures. It mandated a plan to accelerate the use of electronic signatures,” Hettinger said. “There’s a way to go on all of the things that 21st Century IDEA called for. And that’s why the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act is so important.”
Becker said all CX improvements need to start with ongoing feedback from customers and frontline federal employees who provide services to the public.
“It’s really the biggest risk if we forget the front line and the public,” he said. “It could go off the rails if we forget what made IDEA Act effective in the first place. It’s a relentless focus on the user experience of trust and mission delivery.”
The post How 21st Century IDEA set a higher standard for customer experience first appeared on Federal News Network.
