BSG: Citizens ready for next step in digital government

New research suggests that Australians are demanding personalised, proactive services from government, with the bulk of that coming from older and regional citizens.

The ‘Trust Imperative 3: Know Your Customer’ report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Salesforce incorporates data from the Global Digital Citizen Survey of 28,221 people across 40 countries, including 2001 Australians.

The research reveals that Australians are ready for the next step in digital government. Eighty-four per cent of Australians surveyed are seeking proactive services, with almost one in five expecting government to enrol them in services they’re eligible for without prompt, while over a third (35 per cent) expect government to engage them about services based on their profile and circumstances.

Almost one in four respondents over the age of 60 (24 per cent) and from regional areas (23 per cent) expected automatic services, significantly higher than those under 35 (16 per cent) and in metropolitan areas (17 per cent).

The value of these services is clear:

• A more personalised, digital delivery model will improve customer satisfaction and service quality, contributing to greater community trust and confidence in the government.
• Digitally enabled customer service models allow government to provide services at lower cost and free up human resources for more complex activities requiring human engagement.
• By improving the employee value proposition, government can better attract and retain talent in the public service.
   

“Government is grappling with balancing the role of data custodian on one hand and, on the other, delivering the personalised and proactive services customers expect through data sharing. However, these two roles don’t necessarily have to conflict,” said Gisele Kapterian, Senior Director of Public Sector Strategy, Salesforce APAC.

“Continued trust in government is dependent on delivering better value in exchange for data. A great illustration of this working is in the relatively higher demand for proactivity in regional areas where due to physical and virtual connectivity factors, simplification and streamlining of engagement is particularly welcomed.

“It’s time to provide our public service with the right resources to continue building and reinforcing trust. Digitising of government services to meet citizen needs and expectations can unlock efficiencies and cost savings while also improving employee fulfilment.”

According to Miguel Carrasco, Managing Director and Senior Partner, Global Lead for the BCG Center for Digital Government, people now expect the public sector to match private enterprise when it comes to personalisation.

“There has been past scepticism on whether customers want government to deliver services with the same level of personalisation they receive from the private sector. This data shows that customers do want government services to be more personalised to their needs and circumstances, and they endorse the sharing of relevant data to enable that personalisation.

“We also looked at the extent to which people are comfortable with government being more proactive in their service delivery to make life easier for customers. More than half of respondents support this, and are even supportive of government automatically providing services that people are entitled to,” Carrasco said.

Top Australian insights from Trust Imperative 3.0:

• 93% of respondents expect governments’ service quality to be on par with leading technology companies, the private sector and digital governments.
• Australian customer satisfaction (67%) is above the global average (63%).
• 84% of respondents said they preferred services to be provided proactively.
• There has been a 72% increase in respondents who want government to act proactively on their behalf — from 11% in 2021 to 19% in 2022.
• ​​73% of respondents are comfortable with some level of personalisation.
• 67% of respondents experience issues while using digital government services, many possibly resolved by personalisation and proactive delivery.
• In 2022, 91% of respondents were willing to share some level of data.
   

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/immimagery