Taking a Client-Centric Approach to the Public Service of Canada

Understanding who we are in service to.

A point-of-view for the Public Service of Canada and those who enable the mandate of the public service.

Written by: Jesse Moon , Jennifer Brown and Steve Nyenkamp

Only 38% of people say government agency processes and interactions are intuitive, and less than half feel that that government processes are clear and understandable. [1]

When it comes to accessing services from public service organizations, clients are often left navigating a complex system of departments, forms and bureaucracy to get to the result they were hoping for. As the world becomes increasingly more complicated, citizen expectations of the public service will only increase. We would like to explore how, if done right, focusing on the end-to-end experiences of public sector clients, breaking down government silos and holding leaders accountable can help the Canadian Public Sector to better engage with their clients, and drive improved outcomes.

Understanding your clients is essential and foundational in today’s environment.  Canadian citizens hold high expectations of the services and products they receive from their government as they are surrounded by private sector organizations that are truly changing the way they operate in a post-COVID reality. This message came through clearly in Accenture’s Citizen Experience Research, reminding us that citizens want their public service to focus on making service delivery simple and secure with humanity top of mind.[2] And so, it is important to make strategic decisions on where to invest time, money, and effort to identify and design for the needs of Canadian citizens. It is also important that service providers who advise and support the Public Service, have a very clear understanding of the needs and expectations of their clients’ end clients to ensure their advice and products ultimately work for Canadians.

A shift is needed so that the public service has clients top of mind when planning and making decisions. To enable this mindset, the public service should:

1. Take a step back, recognize and reorient to the larger picture of all who use the services of the Government of Canada and understand their journeys and needs. Strive to deliver what matters most to them.
2. Design frictionless client service experiences across departments, agencies and in partnership with the broader public service ecosystem, including citizens, businesses end users and industry.
3. Hold the leadership accountable to delivering experiences that meet client needs and expectations, breaking down silos across the public sector, and incorporating this approach when defining and measuring operational priorities.

The transformation starts by understanding who the clients of the public service really are and where the public service fits in their journeys.

Taking a client centric approach to public services – such as issuing a visa, delivering employment insurance, or collecting taxes – is not a straightforward activity. It is a complex problem which is neither unique to a specific department nor a problem that government faces alone.  

Let’s use a work visa as an example: who is the client you should be focusing on and what are their needs? Is the client the individual who applies for the visa? Is it their Canadian company sponsor who needed them to start work yesterday? Is it their extended family who is excited to welcome them to Canada? Is it the broader public who are expecting that the recipient was vetted for safety concerns? Is it the border agent who processed the visa application? Or is it the individual who issued the mandate? Broadly speaking, the client is all these individuals – and others. Taking a client-centric approach means taking the time to understand who all of your clients are – their needs and expectations – and putting them at the center of service design, product development and operations.

As the world evolves to expect more from organizations, public services are no exception. Two prevalent pressures public service services are facing globally: increasing client expectations and pressure from global forces.

Increasing client expectations. Clients who interact with public services have ever-increasing expectations of the services that they receive, and the experiences they encounter while receiving those services. There is continued pressure on government services and leaders to deliver more citizen-centric experiences. Fjord Trends 2022 highlights the shift in what clients around the world are expecting from organizations with whom they interact. What products and services clients choose to use, will be determined by the ability “to provide the right answers in the right way and at the right time.”[3] The public service is no exception. It will be critical to design programs and services to meet the ever-increasing expectations of Canadians.

Delivering to increase client expectations is difficult, but not impossible. Looking to a recent successful example: Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), worked collaboratively across departments and jurisdictions to drastically improve the client experience for those who register the birth of a child. The integrated service makes it very simple for new – often very tired – parents to obtain a birth certificate (provincial), Social Insurance Number (federal), apply for Canada Child Benefits and kick off the process of saving for future education – digitally, all in one place, at one time. Achieving this level of success was not an easy undertaking, but the client-centric service design and delivery drastically improves the experience for clients.

Increasing pressure from global forces. Governments face strong internal and global influences as they emerge to a post-pandemic world - inflation at 30-year highs, evolving international conflicts, increasing supply chain pressures, and elevating environmental crises. A recent Accenture Research study shows that “up to 72% of consumers say that external factors such as inflation, social movements and climate change are impacting their lives more than in the past.”[4] To thrive in this new normal, Canadians are rapidly and frequently pivoting their attitudes and behaviours. (See Accenture’s Fjord Trends 2022 to explore more on how individuals and organizations are fundamentally thinking differently after two years of disruption.)

Government of Canada clients are comprised of complex individuals, pursuing diverse journeys, and living in an increasingly complicated world. It is critical for governments to design responsive and adaptive services to simplify citizen’s lives amid the uncertainty of the world. Failure to design for the client’s needs can lead to negative end-user experiences, poor civic reaction, unwanted media publicity and political pressure to change or defund mandates or services. It can also lead to Canada being perceived as a poor destination for visit, study, or work, or as less competitive in international business and trade. Ultimately, increasing the cost of services to the public. 

Reimagining our current approach to keep clients at the forefront.

Taking client-centricity seriously generates a multitude of benefits: increased client engagement, issue-prevention leading to improved client and employee experiences, and, ultimately, cost-effective, and timely delivery of services. How might we reimagine our current approach to keep clients at the forefront?

There is a shift in focus needed: from the limited, transactional outcome of an individual service to a more holistic view of public services through a client’s full journey to their intended outcome. This shift involves understanding that your clients’ experiences are more than likely beyond the services your department is responsible for today. It is an entire journey with potentially many experiences across multiple departments.

The shift must be made from how the public service sees a client, to understanding how a client sees their journey: the client simply wants their particular outcome in a timely manner with as little confusion, frustration, and effort as possible. For a client, it is not enough that they received their document on time, it is the experience they had when deciding to open a business or recognize a newly adopted child or travel abroad, including how easy – or hard – it was to obtain ALL the public services they needed to enable that outcome, and not just the one or two services they needed to complete at your department.

Keeping clients at the forefront requires:

1. A mentality switch. From “how do we register a small business?” to “how do we help Canadians develop and sustain new business opportunities?”. This shift in thinking requires that we acknowledge and recognize that the role of government needs to pivot to a client-centric delivery model.
2. Listening to and understanding the client journey. We need to listen and be open to truly understanding the needs of public service clients along their end-to-end journey.
3. Using data to drive insight. We need to harness data continuously to improve the client experience by making evidence based decisions. Ensuring data is a core driver in better understanding your client throughout the relationship and continuously improving the services and products required by them. 
4. Applying our learnings, continuously. We need to apply and embed our learnings into initiative prioritization and effort allocation across the whole of the government. Further, it is critical that those working with the public service reflect on who their clients’ ultimate clients.
5. Solidifying changes with leadership accountability. In June 2022, Prime Minister Trudeau launched a new task force to improve government services for Canadians stating, “Canadians deserve high-quality and efficient government services that are accessible, timely, and make their lives easier.”[5] The message is clear: public service leaders need to be delivering to the needs of citizens with the expectations of a modern service provider. Client-centric, cross-government focus and accountability is needed at all levels of the public service to ensure the end-to-end client experience is simple, secure, and delivered with humanity top of mind. Accountability for leaders must include clear and simple metrics that support client-centric experiences and government wide collaboration. Strategies must be action-oriented and tracked and measured to be achieved. Leader focus and accountability can make it happen.
6. Amplifying impact through partnership across the ecosystem. The journey is not for departments to undertake on their own but one that will require coordination and efforts across the entire public service and in collaboration and partnership with industry to truly understand their client and focus on delivering services that provide the expected value. 

Actioning for the future requires broader exploration

Accenture is here to help. We have focused on actionable steps will enable client centricity within the Canadian government as quickly as this year, but, as we have stated, this is a complex problem which requires a multi-pronged approach to see broader change.

Navigating legislative and policy guardrails, utilizing data and technology advances to improve client experience, and enabling cross government leadership are areas that we will explore further in future posts. Stay tuned!

But let’s start the conversation today: Engage with us on how to create change in the short term while developing a long-term plan to build client-centric experiences across government. We can help you do more; we have the experience to make this happen.