CRM - March 2009 - (Page 22)

MARKET FOCUS: GOVERNMENT addition to just walking into an office or calling on the telephone,” she explains. “The bar has definitely been raised.” Government agencies on all levels, though, may have quite a bit of catching up to do. Ken Landoline, vice president of research for Reno, Nev.–based analyst firm Synergy Research Group, declares the public sector “15 to 20 years behind the customer care contact center world.” There is no doubt that many agencies are trying to improve their service offerings, but with a looming economic recession, less money to invest, and an everincreasing population, will governments be able to catch up or just continue to run in place in the effort to provide citizen service? CRM takes a look at some agencies making the investment, amid others continuing to languish under the premise of “business as usual.” WHAT CHANGED? Madgett points to the e-government initiative that started approximately a decade ago as the moment when agencies determined they needed to bolster service to match what consumers were increasingly expecting from their retailers and other commercial engagements. “Certainly in the last five years there has been more of an uptake in this initiative,” he says. “Governments are starting to realize what’s out there and take advantage of using the Internet at its most basic level to provide service.” This can be seen as a win-win situation for many agencies, as technological innovations allow them to not only optimize their own processes but also cater to an increasingly Internet-fluent constituency. “Local government offices started to progress to online payments such as filing taxes,” Madgett says.“As that relationship has evolved, [agencies are] now looking for something to manage that process—hence CRM—and so it’s about providing that level of service and then cracking it as well with analytics to find out how many people are paying online, the issues they’re having, and how agencies can help [provide a resolution].” When it comes to CRM vendors able to hit the ground running with govern22 ment outlets, Madgett points to typical big-name players including Oracle and SAP, but says others in the CRM world can cater to specific needs of different agencies on all levels. “You also have RightNow, Consona, and other smaller players who can hit more certain geographical markets, local government, and processes specific to them,” he says. Since government has been slower to adopt CRM, it has made many organiza- most significant impact first—generally Web self-service. After that, the customer can scale up as usage grows—similar to how the private sector does it. “Government agencies need to deal with these rising challenges in a timely manner,” she says. “So they are becoming much more comfortable with that.” CRM ROADBLOCKS So if government agencies are starting to grow more comfortable with deploying CRM to gain a more comprehensive view of the customer, then why haven’t they all caught on? Madgett says there are several reasons: legal, operational, and cultural. It can start with terminology. “A lot of what we’re talking about here is customer service, and the private sector–driven mentality to things,” he says. “In the government space, there is a [reluctance] to refer to the citizen as a customer, and that mindset has to go away. You have to be comfortable with thinking of your citizens as customers, even if you don’t call them that.” Madgett also says it gets back to barriers traditionally set up in government agencies sensitive to data they’ve been charged to collect and maintain. He explains that sharing information across agencies—for example, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense—is not necessarily a given. This runs counter to the traditional argument that CRM provides a 360-degree view of the customer (or in government’s case, the constituent). There are also some restrictions on sharing private, sensitive data among different funnels. Add that to the siloed nature of many offices, and even when it’s legal to share information, many will not come together, regardless of whether they’re local, state, or federal. “There’s a challenge there because there is tension between creating a comprehensive view and avoiding ‘Big Brother,’” Madgett says. Madgett says that, generally speaking, the government culture is already a slow adopter of technology. Implementing a CRM system at all can be an issue: At heart, CRM is a strategic solution before a technological one. To Madgett, it www.destinationCRM.com “For the first time, I think we’ll have a president…who is just as smart as all of us about technology. ” tions loathe to stray from on-premises deployments to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Madgett’s research finds there are more on-premises deployments in government than on-demand ones at this point—but that may start to change. “There are some [chief information officers] out there who have encouraged agencies to look more toward SaaS,” he says. “There’s a lot of possibility there. We’re not totally there yet, but there’s certainly a movement [developing]…. We’re cautiously optimistic.” RightNow’s Sherwin-Wulf says the movement’s arrived, with most of the 150 government agencies on her company’s client list having already gone with SaaS, thanks to its lower costs, speed of deployment, and scalability. She reports that many of her company’s customers decide to focus on the channel which will have the CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2009 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - March 2009

CRM - March 2009 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Stay Tuned Stimulating Citizen Experience CRM on Twitter Retailers Face Reality Making Relationships Matter Required Reading We the People Innovation Nation CRM and the iPhone Looking to Score The Virtual Welcome Mat A Tough Transition Made Easier A Training Regimen Gets Rigorous A Battle Fought from Afar Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Connect Pint of View

CRM - March 2009

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