Getting Started with Citizen Relationship Management (CRM)

By Casey Coleman

Deputy Associate Administrator

GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications

# Introduction to Citizen Relationship Management

Citizen Relationship Management is derived from the commercial concept
commonly referred to as Customer Relationship Management, or CRM. CRM
can be best described as a business culture and philosophy to gain
insight about customers, understand their needs, and proactively meet
them while building a stronger relationship with the customer.

Over the last few years this concept has been adapted by government
agencies to better serve citizens, and hence the growth in the concept
now commonly referred to as Citizen Relationship Management. Simply
stated, Citizen Relationship Management's goal is to provide citizens
the highest quality service at the lowest cost to taxpayers by focusing
the government's resources on citizens that need them the most.

CRM is not about getting more information out of citizens, it is about
providing timely, consistent and responsive access to government
information and services by whatever channel citizens prefer. It is a
shift in culture for public authorities to re-orient their service
operations around citizens rather than around stovepiped administrative
and bureaucratic processes.

# Evolution of CRM

Before the advent of CRM technology (prior to the mid-1990s), businesses
managed customer relationships in a low-tech, usually high-touch manner.
Even though customers found this kind of "personalized" relationship
generally satisfying, it was not efficient and it could not be scaled as
businesses grew.

Initially, businesses added technology to automate their customer
interactions without regard to the quality of that interaction for the
customer. Early-stage CRM products, such as Computer Telephony
Integration (CTI) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR), saved money, but
the quality of service declined as it became more automated but less
personal.

More recent developments have improved the situation. Solutions such as
Web-based self-service, voice recognition, and multi-channel
integration, along with the traditional CTI and IVR systems, have
succeeded in lowering costs while enriching the customer experience.
Customers have more convenience and more control, and correspondingly
are more satisfied.

The introduction of Web-based self-service technologies has enabled
customers to have their needs met at their convenience. A few
illustrations are: online banking, online stock trading, electronic
account statements, account management, service modification, self-help
through FAQs and Web content, and submitting trouble tickets and
complaints online.

Web-based self-service has transformed the way businesses interact with
their customers and has allowed businesses to grow much more rapidly
then they could have using traditional channels. One such success story
is XM Satellite Radio, Inc. Headquartered in Washington, DC, XM is one
of two FCC licensees to deliver satellite radio programming. XM realized
very early on that the ability to activate service quickly and
conveniently would be critical to customer satisfaction, and thus, to
the company's success. To deliver this convenience, XM introduced the
ability for customers to self-activate the service over the Web within
weeks of launching its service. Using this Web self-serve application,
XM customers are able to activate their satellite radio service at their
convenience 24 x 7, and they have a call center to fall back on if they
need additional assistance. The convenience and quality of service has
allowed XM to reach the 929,000-subscriber[^1] mark in less than 2 years
of operations for its innovative new product. XM inaugurated its
coast-to-coast, digital-quality service with 101 channels of music,
news, talk, sports, comedy and children\'s programming on November 12,
2001, and was named the \"2001 Invention of the Year\" by *Time*
magazine. The XM Satellite Radio service is targeted to the nation\'s
200 million-plus automobile and truck drivers as well as home radio
users.

The quality of service continues to improve as businesses employ new
capabilities such as Web chat, smart answer, e-mail response, and sales
assistants. Furthermore, by leveraging common technology platforms and
using enterprise application integration tools, the customer sales and
service delivery process is becoming seamless. As an example, a customer
could go online to research a mobile phone, sign up for service, use Web
chat to get additional information on calling plans, and call a live
agent over the phone to complete the order if a problem is encountered.
This has been made possible by a concept referred to as a multi-channel
contact center. Multi-channel contact centers allow businesses to
deliver seamless service to customers over a variety of channels such as
face-to-face, mail, fax, e-mail, and the Web.

Figure 1 shows the CRM evolution and the relationship between cost of
service and quality of service.

![](media/image1.wmf){width="5.58125in" height="3.5944444444444446in"}

Figure 1 -- The evolution of CRM in delivering the highest quality
service at the lowest price

# CRM Trends

By 2001, customer relationship management tools were used more by
commercial enterprises than by government agencies. However, recent
research, such as Accenture's *CRM in Government: Bridging the Gaps*,
and *The E-Government Survey* sponsored by the Pew Internet and American
Life Project, has shown that agencies are beginning to embrace the
citizen relationship philosophy and to adapt these commercial practices
to meet their needs. Citizens are also demanding customer service from
government equivalent to what they expect from commercial enterprises.

While businesses and government face similar pressure to deliver
high-quality service, the driving forces are different for each. Below
are some of the key differences:

  ----------------------------------- -----------------------------------
  Commercial Drivers                  Government Drivers

  Increase top line by increasing     Meet performance and service goals
  revenue and sales                   at the lowest cost to taxpayers

  Increase bottom line by reducing    Budgetary pressures --improve
  the cost of sales and service       quality of service within a
                                      shrinking budget

  Improve customer satisfaction to    Improve citizen satisfaction at the
  increase customer retention         lowest cost

  Increase customer insight to        Improve operating efficiency by
  maximize revenue potential from top focusing the government's resources
  customers                           on the citizens that need the
                                      services the most
  ----------------------------------- -----------------------------------

Even though the drivers for commercial and government enterprises are
somewhat different, they all focus on the customer. The customer's
demand for better service, and the government's need to provide this in
a cost-effective manner are leading to a slow but gradual adoption of
CRM processes and technology.

Accenture's interviews with more than 140 government executives in 15
countries in North America, Europe and Asia revealed that 92% of them
consider it either \"important\" or \"very important\" to deliver
\"superior\" service, but 90% say their agencies are not yet delivering
that superior service.

Steve Rohleder, global chief of Accenture\'s government practice, says
some of the major trends in government CRM include increasing the number
of services offered online and improving the metrics to gauge CRM
efforts. \"In the past few years there was a huge push just to get
information out there, and the only metrics were based on volume,\" he
says. \"Now, understanding how to improve effectiveness and efficiency
is taking precedence.\"[^2]

Canada has topped Accenture's list of best government online CRM efforts
for three consecutive years. \"Canada is number one because they
understand the basic concepts of CRM,\" Rohleder says. \"They are
constantly trying to increase their view of their citizens, have a
relentless drive to increase service, and have strong leadership that
can make change happen.\" (The United States ranked third in
e-government maturity after Singapore.)

# CRM in Action -- USA Services

The state of the industry for businesses has become fairly mature, but
government is still in the early stages of adoption. There are several
examples of innovative programs, however. One of them is USA Services, a
government-wide customer service electronic government (E-Gov)
initiative led by the General Services Administration (GSA).

## **What is USA Services?**

The Bush Administration, recognizing that technology has the power to
transform delivery of information and services to citizens, has made
E-Gov one of its key management priorities. USA Services is one of the
administration's 24 E-Gov projects. It provides citizens with a one-stop
point of contact for obtaining information from and about federal
agencies. It also provides federal agencies with a resource to assist
them in responding to their own particular citizen inquiries.

USA Services is multi-channel in nature. It interacts with agencies and
citizens using a wide variety of communications media, including fax,
e-mail, telephone, and postal mail. It is being built on the foundation
of three successful information providers, each of which has been
providing comprehensive access to federal information and services
within its particular medium: FirstGov.gov (for Web services); the
National Contact Center at 1-800-FED-INFO (for telephone and e-mail
services); and the Federal Citizen Information Center in Pueblo, CO (for
publications).

Fourteen U.S. agencies, including the Department of the Interior (DOI),
the Department of State and the Department of Labor, have signed up with
USA Services to have questions answered through the new program. The
program currently responds to an average of 7,000 calls a month just for
the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). This
call volume is expected to increase dramatically as the program is
expanded to include other partner agencies.

## **Department of the Interior Pilot**

Beginning July 1, 2003, Interior partnered with GSA to pilot the USA
Services concept. Two DOI bureaus, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
and the Office of Surface Mining (OSM), divert telephone and e-mail
inquiries to USA Services to respond on their behalf. USA Services
information specialists answer these phone calls and e-mails as if they
were FWS or OSM employees, making the effort transparent to citizens.
FWS and OSM worked closely with USA Services to ensure that citizen
inquiries were addressed accurately, courteously, and in a timely
manner.

## **Results**

In July 2003, USA Services handled more than 9,200 telephone inquiries
on behalf of the Fish and Wildlife Service. About 58% of these were
addressed using IVR. About 3,600 were "live assistance" calls, meaning
that agents spoke to customers personally. Only 362 of these inquiries
were forwarded to FWS for handling by subject matter experts.

There has also been an across-the-board improvement in the level of
service at FWS, with 90% of the calls being answered within 20 seconds
and call abandonment rates falling to less than 1%.

Between July 15 and August 1, USA Services handled 104 telephone
inquiries on behalf of the Office of Surface Mining. Sixty-four calls
were addressed using IVR; 40 were handled as "live assistance" calls. Of
these, 15 calls were forwarded to OSM employees for handling.

The average handling time for both bureaus was about 3 minutes per call.

By the end of September, over 25,000 calls and 1,000 e-mails were
answered on behalf of the Fish and Wildlife Service. As a result of this
successful pilot, USA Services was asked to answer FWS telephone
inquiries on an ongoing basis.

The CRM philosophy being adopted by USA Services has enabled DOI to
address citizen inquiries more quickly and accurately than ever before.
Furthermore the large number of calls being resolved at first contact is
resulting in higher service quality at a lower total cost. USA Services
plans to expand the offering to additional agencies and channels over
time by continuing to broaden the CRM capabilities being piloted.

> *Shailesh Gupta, Managing Partner of CoreSphere, LLC, an advisor to
> GSA\'s enterprise-wide CRM program, contributed to this article. He
> can be reached at [sgupta@coresphere.com]{.underline} or at (202)
> 421-8284.*

*For more information, contact Casey Coleman at <casey.coleman@gsa.gov>
or at (202) 208-7086.*

[^1]: Number of subscribers reported by XM Satellite Radio as of
    September 30, 2003

[^2]: Rohleder is quoted by Lisa Picarille in *destinationCRM*,
    \"Vertical Focus: Government\", August 27, 2003.