Digital Customer Experience (DCX) Strategy

Human-centric design is an approach to customer experience that prioritizes people’s needs at all points in a service's design and delivery. By actively incorporating people's needs and input at various points in the design process, the City is better equipped to build a process that people are more likely to engage with and enjoy.

To ensure resources are spent efficiently, the City must appropriately incorporate people’s needs into the development of new and redesigned tools and process. This allows the City to better address people’s most critical needs while encouraging a positive CX. Furthermore, creating a simple, intuitive experience results in fewer customer service escalations, more trust and transparency in the process, and less overall time and money spent recovering from poor customer experiences.

A resident of San Diego, Sunny is looking to open a new surfboard and burrito shop. They aren’t sure what they need to open a business. Sunny searches “open a business” on the City’s website. A simple questionnaire produces a personalized list of permits, costs, processing times and links to submit completed applications. Sunny creates an account on sandiego.gov on which their personalized list automatically updates to reflect current statuses. Sunny found this experience positive because the design was personalized, simple, convenient and centralized. Sunny’s needs drove the process.

A digital-first strategy does not mean digital only.

Adding a digital element to an established service helps open the door to make overall process improvements. It also diverts traffic from calls, freeing up the phones lines for who need or prefer calling and provides the employee who answers the call with the tools and knowledge they need to assist the caller quickly and effectively.

If a customer isn’t directly engaging with a digital service, chances are the employee assisting the customer on the phone is interacting with a digital tool.

Digitizing services does not mean simply adding a button to the website or creating a fancy new app; rather it entails comprehensively improving processes efficiency. Part of the challenge the City faces is that many digital tools do not meet expectations of customers or employees. In these situations, challenges arise that prevent customers’ basic needs from being met and hinder employees from efficiently serving customers – causing frustration for everyone throughout the process.

Developing new digital services improves the technology customers and employees interact with.

Sunny moves to a new house and remembers they need to contact the City to start their water service. Using the City’s universal bill portal, Sunny easily creates an account linked to their new address and contact information, starts the water service and adds their other utilities to this account. One day, Sunny forgets to pay their utility bill and contacts the City’s centralized call center to make the payment. Using the phone tree, Sunny selects a convenient call back time. When they receive a call back, the agent uses Sunny’s phone number to easily pull up their account and process the transaction. The agent also helps Sunny enroll in autopayments so they are never late again! Sunny found this experience positive because the service was easy to access, and they were able to engage through a variety of channels that all shared the same information.

Creating a harmonious process involves integrating technology, City processes, and services delivered across departments and services. With a seamless customer experience, people can accomplish what they set out to do without being burdened by internal barriers or divisions.

Harmony helps hold the City accountable to high levels of excellence. Currently, across departments and services, the level of service can vary significantly. Customers expect the same service levels regardless of with which department they are engaging. The principle of harmonious service delivery necessitates breaking down departmental divides, allowing information to flow more freely, and increasing transparency. For example, in a fully integrated system, a customer would be able to receive information or request a service on any City offering without having to know which department performs that specific operation.

While driving home from their shop, Sunny hits a pothole and decides to report it to the City. Using the City’s app, Sunny creates a report. Before submitting, the report generates a list of other road projects that intersect with this pothole and creates a resolution timeline. A day later, San Diego experiences an unexpected rainstorm that impacts how street crews prioritize pothole repair. Sunny receives a notification letting them know why their pothole repair is delayed and offers an updated timeline. After the pothole is repaired, Sunny is emailed photos showing the crew’s good work and completes a feedback form. Even though the repair was delayed, Sunny gave positive feedback because the City was proactive and communicative. Now, supervisors can share this positive feedback with the crew who completed the work, recognizing their contributions and improving overall employee morale. Sunny found this experience positive because the process was well established, and expectations were managed and communicated at the right moments. They didn’t need to reach out for an update and had accurate information at all points in the process.