The Australian Public Sector is improving on customer service at twice the market average, a new analysis says.
Consultants KPMG’s customer experience excellence report found the APS was leading the growth rate of five of six “pillars” of good customer experience.
The report lists APS as having led the pillars of personalisation, integrity, time and effort, expectations, and came second only to the energy industry in the category of empathy.
A 2019 report by David Thodey, chair of CSIRO, called for Australians to be put at the centre of government, and for government to be held accountable for people’s experience with service delivery.
The KPMG report says, following Thodey’s report, funding set aside had enhanced the APS’s focus on measurement and customer satisfaction.
The Black Summer bushfires, floods and COVID-19 pandemic then shifted citizens’ expectations of government services.
“Since March 2020, the public sector has been buffeted by the need to keep the economy resilient and its constituents safe,” the report says.
“Citizens expected the government to be able to develop and deliver existing and new services efficiently and digitally.”
The report finds the public sector delivered on this and now the sector’s focus should shift to how the significant improvements can be maintained.
“Australians have seen a new and emerging standard from the public sector and they won’t easily accept a reverse of this,” it says.
“They will demand consistency across touchpoints and a culture of continuous improvement to ensure service delivery standards keep pace with increasing expectations.”
The report finds to continue this at pace the public sector will need “to orchestrate delivery” and “focus on empathy” as well as continued investment in time and effort and resolution.
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