Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Federal Government Begins Push for More Omnichannel Communications Across Agencies
Can a federal government mandate better customer support? Not among private companies, certainly. But the Biden administration seems poised to make an attempt to improve the customer experience across federal agencies, according to a recent article by Justin Herman, the global head of public sector for Twilio (News - Alert) writing for Nextgov.
“The government is taking action to embrace the omnichannel secret sauce fueling the most innovative companies and making them easier for agencies to buy and build,” wrote Herman.
How is the plan unfolding? It’s a multipronged initiative, comprised of the following steps:
-Under a new IT modernization plan for government agencies, government guidance will encourage federal agencies to provide a more “360-degree, omnichannel experience” to customers.
-The GSA (News - Alert) has authored a request for information (RFI) on a government cloud acquisition strategy. The goal, ultimately, is to craft a a multiple-award blanket purchase agreement for commercial software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) on a pay-as-you-go basis. The proposed multiple-award BPA will allow agencies to acquire and implement secure, seamlessly integrated, commercial cloud service offerings as a replacement for legacy enterprise IT services and products to improve access to data, data-sharing, and customer-facing functions.
-Finally, an executive order announced in June on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the federal workforce will likely lead to increased use of accessible communications and remote work solutions, which open the door for more personalized customer (and employee) engagement.
“The push to make omnichannel communications easier to understand, buy and deploy amongst public services becomes clear: it’s a renewed pursuit of the ‘anytime, anywhere, and on any device’ approach to digital government, now with the addition of ‘for anyone,’” wrote Herman. “With omnichannel communications, our public services can finally stand side-by-side with the most innovative companies providing the best customer experiences and know they are providing the same.”
Edited by Luke Bellos