The virtuous cycle of digital customer experience and trust in government
Providing citizens with competent, human-centered, and integrity-driven digital services can help governments rebuild public trust.
That government institutions are in the throes of an acute trust crisis has been reported in recent years.1 Less discussed or understood, however, are ways to address it. One potential solution: Improving customer experience (CX) of digital services offered by government.
This may be logical considering that the ubiquitous nature of technology today has resulted in digital services increasingly becoming citizens’ first point of interaction with the government. Hence, CX that is efficient, engaging, and user-friendly allows citizens better access to relevant services and execute desired transactions, which in turn results in deeper trust in government.
Our 2021 research on trust in government revealed a connection between satisfaction with digital services and trust in government.2 Constituents surveyed who were pleased with their state government’s digital services also rated the state highly on measures of overall trust. Conversely, dissatisfaction with digital services resulted in decreased trust, undermining any pre-existing loyalty to the government institution (figure 1).
Our latest Digital Citizen Survey reaffirms this hypothesis. We asked 1,000 people in the United States about their perception of digital government services and trust in government to protect their personal data. Our analysis revealed similar linkages between satisfaction with digital services and trust in government to protect personal data. Respondents satisfied with a digital service offered by a government agency tend to trust that agency more to protect their personal data. However, if they are dissatisfied with the services, their trust levels plummet (figure 2).
The message seems clear for government leaders—providing competent, human-centered, and integrity-driven digital interactions can strengthen public trust. Conversely, a negative CX can erode trust by undermining citizens’ confidence in government’s capabilities.
Another takeaway from our analysis is that higher levels of trust in government can lead to several additional benefits: For example, citizens surveyed who trust the government are twice as likely to share personal data, 1.9 times more likely to allow interagency data-sharing, and 1.4 times more likely to support a unique digital identity.
Moreover, combining personal data, digital identity, and inter-agency data-sharing can enable governments to deliver more human-centered, adaptive, and innovative services. By centering services around life events such as birth, marriage, divorce, death, education, unemployment, health, and retirement, governments can focus on the individual citizen or business and their needs at different stages of their life.3 For example, the United Kingdom’s “Tell Us Once” program, developed for interactions involving death and bereavement, allows UK residents to notify tax authorities, the passport office, local governments, and other benefit programs through a single interaction, making the process more efficient and less burdensome.4
In a similar effort, the US Office of Management and Budget has launched nine Life Experience projects to streamline, and thus improve, their services catering to different life events experienced by Americans.5
Finally, it is important to recognize that improving CX and trust is not a one-time task but an ongoing process. Government agencies should consistently evaluate and improve their services based on citizen feedback, advances in digital technologies, and changing societal needs. This can help build and retain trust with citizens and foster a culture of transparency and openness, leading to more engaged and involved constituents.