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The Constituent Engages
CEM and The Government
Mr. Paul Greenberg
President, The 56 Group
G-CEM International Partner (US)
www.the56group.typepad.com
This article is exclusively written for G-CEM.
There is no government in the world that hasn't heard this constant refrain over the last 20 years: you have to regain citizen trust. Note here, I said "regain" not "gain". Citizen trust in many countries has been considerably diminished over the past 25 or 30 years to a level so poor it was almost incomprehensible those decades ago. For example, in the United States, before Barack Obama's election, according to polls run by Time Magazine over several decades the level of trust in government institutions (not administrations) fell from a high when John F. Kennedy was President (1960-63) of 75 percent to its current 32 percent - the latter a place its been since Watergate. Abysmal, indeed.
More than likely, to accomplish this restoration of faith, if they care enough, governments will typically look at a way to increase the services that they provide the citizenry or they will try to simplify the existing services through streamlining them.
The impact of President Obama's election campaign on the worldfabric was profound, because it broke new ground in how social toolsand constituent engagement strategies are applied. But applying it to administrative efforts through federal (and let's not forget state andlocal) agencies is very different than how it's used in a campaign. Thecampaign was marketing, so to speak, and the use of constituent engagement strategies and tools is customer service-also so to speak.It's easy to want to make the linear transition, but it's not a lineartransition.
The transition to constituent engagement built around either a customerservice model or a contemporary collaborative version of what's called the public-private partnership is a lot more strenuous and actuallya lot harder because its purpose is a continuous engagement of adiverse set of constituencies at the individual level that does not havean election day end date. The social constituent doesn't just wanttransparency-which allows them to make more intelligent decisionon how they are going to engage with an institution-they want toactually engage with that institution. This is not the human participantof even five years ago. They expect that transparency, honesty,and the means to engage will be made available from every single institutionthey potentially interact with.
This is no mean feat when it comes to the government. To put itbluntly, no one trusts the government-at least in the U.S.-to dowhat it's expected to. In fact, the Edelman Trust Barometer 2008 pointsout that trust in government institutions across the 18-country boardis at 39 percent-a pathetic level of trust. The numbers are staggering:
United States at 39 percent; Europe at 29 to 37 (except Sweden and theNetherlands at 63 percent); Asia (India, Japan, South Korea) at 40 to49 percent. China is an anomalous 79 percent. In other words, in15 of18 countries trust in government ranges from 29 to 49 percent.
The remedy is already on the table. Oddly, a government that getssomewhat maligned in the U.S. from time to time is easily the mostresponsive in the world. It's a place I've visited several times and writtenabout on occasion: Singapore. I am not alone in these findings. As I'll show you in a bit, Accenture published a study in early 2009 thatverifies my claims.
We begin in 2005.
2005
In August 2005, Singapore Prime Minister Lee HsienLoong deliveredwhat was a landmark speech in which he declared a "National ServiceExcellence Initiative" that would create a service environment alongthe lines of the Ritz-Carlton-"ladies and gentlemen serving ladiesand gentlemen". What made this ground-breaking was that this wasthe first time (at least that I could find) that a government stoodentirely behind an initiative that was based on creating an extraordinarycustomer experience that extended from every employee of governmentor business to the employers to the individuals who touchedthe shores. Some of it was to encourage international investment inthis tiny city-state, but for the most part it was to provide the kind ofexperience for its citizens that would make them loyal to the institutionsthat ran the country. It started with the retail industry butextended far beyond that.I experienced this firsthand when I landed at the Singapore airporta month after the declaration of the initiative and they had someonewho greeted me and took me through customs without a hitch. A fewdays later when I had neglected to get an issue of the Singapore BusinessTimes that carried an interview with me and couldn't find it thenext day anywhere, my hotel-a five-star called the Sheraton TowersSingapore-made an unsolicited effort to get me the paper by sendingsomeone to the offices of the Singapore Business Times and deliveringit to me in my room on a Saturday. The stuff legends are made of-anda direct result of the National Service Excellence Initiative.
2007
But Singapore didn?t stop at just creating a high-caliber service environment.They have actually created feedback programs that wouldbe classified by Trendwatching.com (sister site to Springwise) if theyhad "in-between" grades, something like Feedback 2.5.
About Feedback 2.0 (which is now being superseded by Feedback3.0) according to Springwise:
. . . about these rants-and some raves-having gone "mass" (no,make that MASS!). The long-predicted conversation is finally takingplace, albeit amongst consumers and not, as intended, between corporationsand consumers. Companies have started to take note, but to a large degree still choose to listen, not talk back, trying to "learn" fromthe for-all-to-see review revolution. Which is surprising, to say theleast, since a quick and honest reply or solution can defuse even themost damaging complaint.
Now look at the definition of Feedback 3.0:
Feedback 3.0 (which is building as we speak) will be all about companiesjoining the conversation, if only to get their side of the story infront of the mass audience that now scans reviews. Expect smart companiesto be increasingly able (and to increasingly demand) to posttheir apologies and solutions, preferably directly alongside reviewsfrom unhappy customers. Expect the same for candid rebuttals bycompanies who feel (and can prove) that a particular review is unfairor inaccurate, and want to share their side of the story.
Singapore probably falls somewhere in between that, around2.5-as a country! Whoa! They actually have an annual National FeedbackDay, which is designed to capture feedback from interested citizensso that they can input government policy and budgets. In 2007,I attended National Feedback Day with about 6,000 Singaporean citizensand watched with astounded fascination the mostly intelligent and passionate discussions on varying government reports with proposalsin different areas such as housing, transportation, or education.
Citizens flocked to general and proposal-specific sessions to discusstheir thinking on the different proposals and present their counterproposalsor support for the existing recommendations. The actualcommittees that wrote the report were on stage and available to begrilled. The back and forth about housing or education policy basedon the proposal was amazingly detailed. Each committee had a scrivenerwho took notes on the citizens' comments.
If you couldn't attend, they had all of the reports available onlineand you could provide them with feedback there. All the in-personand online feedback was aggregated and then incorporated into therevisions discussion. Recommendations were made and policieschanged accordingly. But it didn't stop there.
2008
For National Day Rally 2008, they decided that because feedback isso critical, they would conduct a feedback exercise that comprised "SMS,online polls, discussion forums, and blogs. We have also recently addedFacebook as a new channel to solicit feedback from Singaporeans."
The ROI (If You Continue to Use that Archaic Measure)
In early 2009, Accenture put out its "2008 Leadership in CustomerService: Creating Shared Responsibility for Better Outcomes," a reportthat makes up in substance what it lacks in title mojo. This is one that they've annually done and, despite its abstraction of a title, looks atwhat best practices can be extracted from public sector institutions.
This year, the four best practices are:
1. "Better service starts with better understanding."
2. "Engage. Listen. Respond."
3. "Harness all available resources."
4. "Be transparent. Be accountable. Ask for and act on feedback."
All in all, the report is well worth reading, which is saying a lot forme, given my historic (though softening) antipathy toward Accenture.
Despite that, this is really good work. You can get it at http://newsroom.accenture.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=4783. Take a look atSingapore's resultant ROI by comparison to other nations who didwell:
Accenture's Question Result (Positive Responses)
How good do you think your government is at delivering abetter quality of life for you and your family?
1: Singapore (59 percent)
2: Ireland (55 percent)
How good or bad is the government at providing equal access?
1: Singapore (67 percent)
2: Ireland, Australia (56 percent)
How good or bad is the government at targeting resources?
1: Singapore (59 percent)
2: Malaysia (48 percent)
How good or bad is the government at tailoring services?
1: Singapore (51 percent)
2: Canada (45 percent)
How good or bad do you think your government is at seekingthe opinions of its citizens?
1: Singapore (50 percent)
2: Ireland (45 percent)
How effective or not do you think the different governmentdepartments and services are at working together to meet theneeds of citizens?
1: Singapore (69 percent)
2: Ireland (60 percent)
How effective do you think the government is at working withnon-government organizations, such as businesses andvoluntary/non-profit organizations, to improve the quality ofyour life?
1: Malaysia (61 percent)
2: Singapore (56 percent)
Overall trust in government to improve quality of life (workedon a mean score)
1: Singapore (3.5)
2: Malaysia (3.2)
Source: Aggregated from Accenture's "2008 Leadership in Customer Service Report"
What is completely noticeable is that in all but one area the governmentof Singapore comes in first in the world when it comes to constituentswho trust them to be transparent, provide a quality of lifethat is personally valuable to individual constituents, do the rightthing, and at the same time, continuously engage their citizenry.
The core of Social CRM has always been engagement, whether theengaged individual is in the shoes of the customer, the constituent, orthe game player-whatever role they play in and with the institutionthey are interacting with. Follow the right path around practices andstrategy, implement the right programs, support it with money, listento the changes that your constituents ask for, act on the ones that youare able to. That will net you a contented and involved citizenry-which is what it's all about, isn't it?
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About the Author
Prior to his current position as President of the 56 Group, LLC, Paul was the Executive Vice President of Live Wire, Inc. a Massachusetts-based enterprise applications staff augmentation company. Before that, Paul was vice president of marketing for Atlantic Duncans International (now Optimos) where he was responsible for developing and securing strategic relationships with critical vendors and partners. In addition, Paul was the director of strategic relations for Nexgen Solutions, Inc., where he was directly responsible for generating business development working with Fortune 500 clientele.
Paul has years of experience with both CRM and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). He has built SAP and People Soft practices and, has extremely deep ties into the CRM and enterprise applications communities.
Paul received a Bachelor of Science in Journalism with majors in editorial journalism, sociology, and a minor in English Literature from Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism. He currently lives in Northern Virginia with his beloved wife Yvonne and their two cats.
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