Can technology innovation pave the way for better citizen service? On July 21 – we’re going to find out. The countdown to MerITocracy 2022: American Innovation Forum is on.
The in-person forum – taking place at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C., from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. – will host bipartisan leaders from Congress, the Biden administration, and America’s tech industry to examine the most pressing problems facing citizens in our democracy, and map out creative solutions from the nexus of policy and technology. We invite you to register for MerITocracy today.
In the lead-up to the July 21 forum, we are table-setting a host of big issues that will get serious attention at MerITocracy 2022.
Today, Barton Phillips, Vice President of Public Sector at DocuSign, talks about the benefits of digitizing citizen services, and how Federal, state, and local government agencies are moving away from cumbersome paper-based processes to better serve their constituents:
Revolutionizing Constituent Experiences with Modern Tech
By Barton Phillips, Vice President of Public Sector, DocuSign
With today’s citizens expecting from government access to the 24/7 self-serve, mobile-friendly and digital tools that are common in their everyday lives, now is the time for Federal, state, and local government agencies to bring customer satisfaction to the forefront.
Enhancing constituent experiences is a key priority for government leaders. A 2019 DocuSign survey found that 90 percent of government decision-makers viewed those improvements as extremely or very important.
Recent White House executive orders, mandates, and national legislation have further amplified the push for enhancing constituent experiences. Those include the 2021 Presidential Executive Order (EO) for customer experience, the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) five focus areas for improved benefits, services, and programs, the “Fed CX Mandate,” and the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act.
These programs are codifying the changes needed to bring seamless customer experiences to government functions permanently. Their long-term impacts will reduce the administrative burden of government, while further engaging how Federal, state, and local agencies streamline processes using technology.
Streamlining the Constituent Experience
To enhance customer experiences, government agencies will need to streamline their processes and paperwork. To deliver public services faster and more efficiently, government agencies can improve several programs and processes with digitization, including:
- Contracts and acquisitions: Centralize and streamline full end-to-end agreement and procurement processes to save time, control costs, and decrease risks, as well as increase visibility into the full lifecycle of vendor contracts;
- Employee and contractor PIV card authorization: Enable employees and contractors to electronically sign documents using their Personal Identity Verification (PIV) credential, reducing non-value-added paperwork and creating a better employee experience;
- Licensing and permitting: Rapidly transform agreement processes to help permitting and licensing offices save time, cut costs, reduce risk, and improve citizen satisfaction;
- Inspection forms: Reduce the time it takes to process and manage complex inspection forms by digitizing all documents;
- Employee, contractor, and vendor hiring and onboarding: Speed up the overall procurement cycle for hiring industry and vendor experts to help support new citizen experience programs, as well as automate and digitize processes for all employee, contractor, and vendor onboarding;
- Application for benefits: Make it easy for constituents to fill out mobile-friendly applications and capture complete information in one or multiple signed forms to reduce errors and streamline the application workflow; and
- Eligibility determination: Minimize errors and easily audit signed applications with standardized digital forms, and collect information and supporting documents for enrollment and renewal processes.
Improving Customer Experiences at HHS Agencies
Today’s government health agencies have significant mission goals that are founded on enhancing the health and wellbeing of U.S. citizens. Meeting the mission requires a wide range of services and solutions that enhance everything from intra-agency collaboration to public health and social service delivery.
Much like the highly complex and regulated consumer healthcare arena, the public sector also has to contend with processes and paperwork required for everything from acquisition (contract and grant lifecycle management) to distribution, compliance, online marketplaces, and much more.
Keeping constituents at the forefront of all of these processes is paramount for health agencies. To enhance customer experiences, government health agencies have already streamlined processes and paperwork to enhance overall time-to-value for meeting the needs and expectations of the public and their employees.
For example, the administrative burden of paperwork costs an agency like the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) approximately $10 billion per year with more than 5,000 unique forms to manage.
To help alleviate this challenge, there are many strategies for agencies to move away from cumbersome paperwork and increase time-to-value for various programs and efforts with DocuSign CLM.
DocuSign partnered with the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to expedite its distribution of $175 billion in grants for the Provider Relief Fund, which supports families, workers, and healthcare providers in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
As a result, the agency was able to shorten its grant distribution process from three-to-four months to as little as five days, with no downtime since launching.
How Your Agency Can Enhance the CX Experience
DocuSign helps public sector officials focus on their mission instead of paperwork, deliver a better citizen experience, reduce costs, and streamline processes. DocuSign serves over 4,000 local, state, and Federal public sector organizations – and over a billion users. Key features include:
- eSignature: Securely send and sign agreements with electronic signature and maintain a complete audit trail. Route documents or bulk send forms and notifications to multiple users;
- ID Verification: Verify the identity of your contractors, vendors, and employees remotely and securely to get critical business done faster with DocuSign ID Verification. Require signers to correctly answer questions about themselves compiled from commercially available databases;
- Contract Lifecycle Management: Centralize document management workflows for any government process involving critical documentation, such as grants, investigations, and case management. DocuSign CLM tools make it easier to build new document workflows and edit clauses, and digitize redlining, signature, and routing;
- Secure: DocuSign eSignature and DocuSign CLM are authorized at the FedRAMP Moderate Impact Level and have been granted a provisional Department of Defense (DoD) Impact Level 4 (IL4) authorization; and
- Accessible: DocuSign eSignature offers an accessible signing experience that conforms to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and WCAG 2.1 AA. The sending experience supports WCAG 2.0 AA guidelines and is in the process of updating to WCAG 2.1
As citizens grow more accustomed to using consumer-facing digital applications in their daily lives, the demand for government-related customer applications will only increase.
Thankfully, there are many solutions that can help agencies move away from cumbersome paper-based processes to better serve citizens and constituents. With increased adoption of these technologies on the horizon, we all will have a more effective and digitally-enabled government.