International developments
A study released by Accenture in April 2005, Leadership in Customer Service: New Expectations, New Experiences,1 has concluded that, despite having invested billions of dollars moving services and information resources online, governments around the world (22 countries are covered in the report) are still struggling to meet citizens’ growing expectations of better customer service. In a departure from its previous reports, Accenture has gone beyond measuring the extent to which governments offer services online to investigating their ‘leadership in delivering real and expanded customer service’, namely, the value they bring to their citizens through four key aspects of ‘leadership in customer service’: a citizen-centred perspective; cohesive multi-channel services; fluid cross-government services; and proactive communications and education.
Key findings were that, although most citizens are eager to embrace a new generation of services, governments are falling short in delivering them. Fifty-five per cent of citizens, for instance, believe government is being effective when it acts as a single, seamless entity that can remember all the details of a citizen’s previous contact with it. The study found that e-government offerings across the board are well-advanced, with an average service maturity breadth of 91%. Service maturity breadth focused on services online which identified that countries are approaching saturation point in terms of services they could put online and that to make future advances governments will need to focus on a much broader vision. However, the study also found that all countries could do more to realise the broader goal of ‘leadership in customer service’. In fact, the overall average customer service maturity score was just 39%, when the four key aspects of ‘leadership in customer service’ are considered. Only Canada had an overall customer service maturity score of more than 50%. All countries surveyed experienced a drop from the previous year’s overall e-government maturity scores, which measured solely the level to which the government had developed an online service delivery presence.
1 Accenture, Leadership in Customer Service: New Expectations, New Experiences, April 2005, <www.accenture.com>
