Start with What’s Obvious for Your Jurisdiction
Selecting use cases is often a matter of examining the pipeline of a given program and identifying bottlenecks. This approach allows you to identify high-impact projects that might be executable in a matter of months.
A methodology such as human-centered design helps put real users at the center of a decision-making process. The first step in HCD is to clarify the problem using both quantitative and qualitative data. In some cases, politics and leadership directives handle this part for you.
For instance, when South Carolina’s SNAP application processing times were not Department of Agriculture compliant, the state evaluated the data to identify bottlenecks. It found that the phone interview process was a significant source of delay. The problem was fixed using Amazon Connect, which improved SNAP application processing timelines by nearly 26%.
READ: States cut red tape to address food insecurity with cloud solutions.
Consider How To Enhance Your Top Digital Touchpoints
Benefits are primarily accessed through three digital touchpoints:
- Live voice contact centers: Citizens dial in to seek and exchange information about benefits applications and processes.
- Web applications: Websites are accessible via public computers such as those at libraries, making them ideal access points for people seeking benefits; this includes embedded chatbot functionality.
- Mobile apps phone applications: Many who lack access to broadband or who do not own computers will rely more heavily on smartphones.
Timely support and application processing of benefits often hinges on the performance of these channels. Again, assessing the performance and reliability of these channels using KPIs can help you clarify a problem and orient you toward a solution.
Ambient computing represents a fourth touchpoint of growing importance. This latent form of computing is so fluid that it doesn’t necessarily feel like computing. Examples include digital assistants and wearable technology.
People with disabilities, older adults and other groups that struggle with traditional computing methods can benefit from ambient computing. Wherever possible, consider how you might be able to leverage it as a fourth touchpoint.
LEARN: Here is how state and local residents benefit from cloud-based contact centers.
Map Out the Benefits Lifecycle
User journey mapping is a highly valuable exercise. As a baseline, an application lifecycle for benefits should do all of the following for citizens:
- Identify and explain all available programs
- Determine applicant eligibility with online questionnaires.
- Make application materials easily available online
- Validate applications so they aren’t rejected due to missing information, and even provide a confidence score for application completeness
- Deliver automated updates on application status
- Provide guidance on how to leverage approved benefits effectively (e.g., identifying grocery stores near food benefits recipients)
- Solicit feedback to figure out what’s working through the process and what isn’t
Digital government is about offering all of these things; transformational government is about optimizing them.
Some applicant lifecycles will require multiple channels (e.g., web, contact centers). This is where cloud infrastructure and modern applications with robust application programming interfaces are hugely important.
Converting physical, paper-based documentation into digital data is another potential hang-up. Intelligent document processing solutions such as Amazon Textract can eliminate manual processes and expedite the digitization of paper-based information.
Lastly, personalization is becoming more important to the commercial experience, and it should be mirrored in the citizen experience. Citizens should be able to log in to a web or mobile app to view application timelines and complete any outstanding requests. Leveraging nascent technologies such as advanced analytics and artificial intelligence can also deliver insights to these users that provide more proactive benefits assistance.
EXAMINE: Identity management creates a personal experience for citizens.
Secure Everything, All the Way Through
Verified users must only have access to what they need each step along the way. Fraud detection and identity and access management are key to adopting a zero-trust approach to dispersing benefits and clearing and authenticating citizens. The more quickly and effectively you can achieve this, the faster and more securely you can help people access the benefits they need.
From security to integration to manual processes, complexity is inherent to distributing assistance to citizens. Digital and transformational government is about identifying and mapping the user journey and understanding how processes and technologies can enhance peoples’ experiences on that journey. That, in turn, can improve their lives.
This article is part of StateTech’s CITizen blog series.
