Personalised and proactive government: creepy or cool?

In early 2020, BCG and Salesforce collaborated to produce the Trust Imperative Report. Our study (not surprisingly) found evidence of a clear and symmetrical relationship between the quality of digital public services, and citizens' trust and confidence in government. Great citizen experiences enhance trust and poor experiences erode it.

The world has changed a lot since then. The COVID-19 pandemic (the pandemic) thrust governments into unchartered waters, and forced them to innovate quickly to maintain services digitally and remotely. New offerings were launched at unprecedented speed and scale, and in some cases the usual requirements for paperwork and signatures were waived or suspended, just so customers could continue to access services. The pandemic revealed that the public sector can be just as agile and responsive to citizen needs and expectations when it wants to be, and when it needs to be. Highly-dedicated public servants and industry partners, working in agile, multi-disciplinary teams, in short cycles or sprints, aligned to clear missions achieve extraordinary things, and so much more than 'business-as-usual', when unshackled from the legacy of outdated, non value-adding bureaucracy, hierarchy and traditional ways of working.

Public dependency on digital government services are at an all-time high. People are now accessing online government services multiple times per day to get the latest health advice, case statistics and restrictions, check-in and out of venues and public spaces, access economic stimulus payments (e.g. travel or tourism vouchers), or use contact tracing apps. To understand how things have changed over the last 12 months, we conducted our study again, resulting in the Trust Imperative 2: This time it's personal

BCG and Salesforce surveyed 2,900 people and interviewed 24 government leaders and experts across Australia and New Zealand. 

We asked people how their usage of digital government services has changed through the pandemic, about the quality of digital experiences, and how this influences their trust and confidence in government. We also explored their attitudes towards data sharing, personalisation and proactivity in service delivery. We conclude, that while much has changed, some things have not - in particular, the importance of the relationship between the quality of digital experiences and people's trust and confidence in government. 

People rely on digital government services more than ever before

Usage of digital government services increased. Over the last 12 months, 38 percent of Australians and 52 percent of New Zealanders said that they engaged with digital government services either weekly, or more than once a week. In New Zealand this was up by 12 points since our previous survey in 2020. Almost nine out of ten respondents used at least one COVID-19 related digital government service over the last twelve months. The most frequently accessed services include accessing up to date COVID-19 information and health advice via a government website or mobile app, checking in at a public space using a government provided QR code or downloading either the Australian COVIDSafe app or NZ COVID Tracer apps to support contact tracing efforts.

Quality of digital government services has improved

Overall, around 40 percent of customers said their most recent digital interactions were better than previous ones (44% of New Zealanders, and 39% of Australians). Some jurisdictions saw a marked improvement. In Australia, NSW was the stand-out leader with 84 percent of customers satisfied with COVID-19 digital government services, and 45 percent of them saying their experience had improved in the last 12 months. 

However, governments cannot be complacent. Customer expectations are high and continue to rise. Our research showed that ~20 percent of customers expect digital government services to be of a similar standard to those offered by global digital leaders and technology giants like Apple, Google and Facebook. Between 50 and 55 percent expect governments to match the high standards set by the best private sector companies such as banks, e-commerce and telcos. And approximately 20 percent expect services to be similar to the best online government services in the world.

The customer experience of engaging with world-class digital services usually involves a high degree of personalisation and proactivity. The information and offers presented to users are curated and targeted based on an understanding of the customer, using data collected directly or indirectly. This is normally done with the consent of users by acceptance of the terms and conditions of using the service. Algorithms then make predictions about their needs and preferences and generate individualised recommendations or suggestions. In a government context, this might mean presenting or making suggestions about services that are more relevant to the user based on their profile. It could even go further, and enable governments to make automated assessments about eligibility or entitlements based on an indvidual's specific known circumstances. The extent to which these features are genuinely desired, in the delivery of digital government services has not really been explored in much detail. We used this research as an opportunity to ask citizens' their views on personalisation and proactive servicing.

Permission to personalise and be proactive

Overall, around two-thirds of customers believe that personalisation would improve the quality of government service delivery, and we found that three-quarters of customers want government to tailor services to some degree. Our research shows that 76 percent of customers want some form of tailored experience, customised to their needs and context, when accessing government services (see exhibit). For example, 38 percent of customers expressed that they were comfortable with government services being offered based on what governments know about “people like me” and 25 percent said they would be comfortable with a higher degree of personalisation, and being offered tailored services based on what governments know about them specifically. However, one in four customers do not want services to be tailored at all, preferring generic information and advice only.

Surprisingly, we found the appetite for proactive service delivery to be much higher than expected. Around 9 out of 10 customers expect government to proactively engage them, to varying degrees. Around 30 percent of customers expect governments to proactively engage them about services they have used in the past, 46 percent would be comfortable with governments proactively engaging with them about services which might be relevant to them. But people are less comfortable with governments taking actions on their behalf, even if they had previously provided consent, with only 11 percent saying they were happy for governments to do so.

The challenge with offering a more personalised and proactive experience is that it often requires a lot of data and the consent to collect, store, aggregate, share and use this data. However, we found that people are actually quite willing to share personal data in return for the benefit of a more personalised experience.

People are willing to share data

Around 70 percent expressed a willingness to share personal data to tailor services, providing it makes their lives easier and the benefits are clear. More than 50 percent of customers are willing to share data related to a specific service or domain if it makes their lives better (e.g. improves customer experience, reduces time to complete a transaction, or has broader benefits for the community).

However, not all data are created equal. People are more comfortable with sharing some types of data than others. For example, 59 percent of customers told us they would be comfortable with government using data already held across different agencies and departments to deliver more tailored services. Approximately 45 percent said they would approve of government collecting and aggregating data from commercial sources also (e.g. data held by utility companies or financial institutions). However, customers were far less comfortable about the idea of governments leveraging data from retail and social media companies (34 percent).

The clear message from the research was that customers want a more personalised and proactive experience, and are willing to provide consent and share data required to enable it, if they can see a clear, tangible and immediate benefit.

Governments are getting better at communicating the benefits of data sharing. We asked users how well they thought governments were doing at communicating the benefits of data sharing. Overall, 43 percent of customers said they approve of the way governments have been communicating the benefits of sharing data. And there has been a significant increase of 16 points from 2020 when only 27 percent believed they were doing a good job.

Transparency and communication will be critical to building the trust and confidence of citizens. As we saw in our previous research and again this year, when citizens have a great digital service experience, their trust and confidence in government increases. When their trust and confidence increases, so does their willingness to share data. Governments have a unique opportunity to build on the positive customer experiences of the last 12 months and the increased trust generated, to win over customers and use data to deliver the more personalised and proactive service experiences. This will in turn lead to a better experience and creates a positive feedback loop and self-reinforcing system.