Building CX-Savvy Agencies: Notes from the GovLoop CX Community of Practice Webinar

This week, I had the pleasure of guest speaking to an international audience on GovLoop’s CX Community of Practice virtual networking event in a session titled “How to Help Make Your Organization More CX-Savvy.” 

First, thanks to GovLoop for the invitation! You can watch a replay of the session here:

Why Do Government Agency Leaders Need to Care About Customer Experience?

During the conversation, Candace Thorson and I discussed building a CX spirit across an organization. Of course, CX should matter to leaders and employees across an organization, not just to those with “customer” in their title.

But Candace asked me to offer some reality checks.

My big point: while government agencies aren’t profit-driven, their leaders are still often held to business standards that mirror those in the private sector, at least to some extent. I can't think of a single government agency CFO who'd say no to leading an efficient, resource-sensitive organization. I can't think of a single Inspector General who wouldn't be happy to find existing management efficiencies within an agency.

CX practices and principles have been shown time and time again to give that to the organizations that genuinely embrace them. That's why CX matters to everyone.

What Are the Barriers to Getting Buy-In from Leaders to Care About CX?

But there are always barriers to building CX mindsets.

One way to get traction is to reflect on how you, as a CX person, talk about CX. “Customer experience” can be a limiting frame if it’s not connected to the agency's core business. You can’t just pound the table shouting, “Customers!” and expect everyone to jump on board. Instead, tie CX talking points to the agency's strategic goals, operational efficiency, or mission delivery.

Who Is Really the Customer for Government Agencies?

We also tackled the question of who the “customer” really is in government. I shared an example of how, for a trade-related agency, a small business owner and the taxpayer could reasonably be seen as customers when government-backed loans are the topic. Some would call these loans taxpayer-backed, and they would not be wrong.

Such debates are more common than you think. If the prevailing view among the most influential internal leaders is that taxpayers are the priority, then you can bet small business owners will see more friction in their experiences. More application work. More documentation. Longer forms. The explanation: Because taxpayer interests, not the small business owner, are the priority.

Set your positivity bias aside and realize that attitude is neither right nor wrong. It is what it is. You have to listen up when these cultural cues are coming your way. They are your sign for knowing what you're going to deal with. It's part of the CX leader's gig.

Where Should CX Evangelists Start?

Start wherever you can get traction. Many so-called experts will try to prescribe what's right and what's wrong. Don't listen. You're the one closest to what's going on. You know the power structures and internal influences.

You will find out early on who's ready to link arms and work with you, and who you need to spend more time convincing to join you.

Look at your agency’s strategic goals. Is there language around service improvement, employee engagement, or process efficiency? That may be your launch pad.

What About Real Experiences?

I shared how my own CX work at an international trade agency started with setting time standards, measuring, monitoring, and triaging application processing times. From the outside, you might call this customer wait time. I then drew departmental leaders into those conversations. We started meeting regularly as a team to go over slow-moving transactions.

It wasn't a popular gathering at first, but eventually it turned into a weekly standing-room-only discussion on why transactions were moving more slowly than we promised. Now, don't mistake it for a weekly party. There were plenty of disagreements between people in those meetings. You could bet on it walking into the room every Tuesday morning at 10.

The point is, this was a successful starting point because application processing was familiar territory for many senior leaders and their teams. Everyone understood applications were being processed all the time. They, too, had heard customer complaints.

What I brought was structure, connection to the agency's mission, a triage tone, and the voices of multiple stakeholders together in the spirit of CX governance. And off we went.

What About Sludge Audits?

Finally, I touched on sludge audits—an emerging way to identify the psychological friction in processes that can undermine accessibility and equity. Sludge, like confusing websites or burdensome paperwork, often stems from an empathy gap between leaders who make rules and set up processes and the people who have to live by them.

Here's a great sludge audit toolkit if you want to explore further.

My Closing Advice for Building CX Savvy and Buy-In?

Frame your CX work as a business imperative, not just a customer one. This work is worth doing, but it takes grit. The seeds you plant today may bloom years from now, even after you're gone and the next person takes over.

Thanks again to GovLoop for the invitation, and best wishes to everyone in the CX COP. Follow me on LinkedIn.