The annual ‘Leadership in Customer Service’ survey of e-government deployments globally by Accenture revealed that in general the leading governments are introducing services on a par with the best of the private sector. Governments that have led the way, however, are now at a critical junction having ‘reached the limit’ of their current approaches and need to re-assess and re-craft their customer service strategies.
In terms of the gap between businesses doing an excellent job at deploying customer services and those of governments, Ireland came in at a -19pc gap compared with Singapore with +11pc. In some of the world’s most economically powerful countries the gap was wider at -24pc in the UK and -27pc in the US. Across the world, citizens generally agreed that government lags behind business in developing online services.
Ireland did score well, however, amongst companies perceived to be using proactive tactics to promote adoption of their service strategies using a combination of stick (putting strong pressure or mandatory use of channels) and carrot (incentives for online use) tactics. As a result, the country saw a 6pc increase in the rates of e-government usage. The Netherlands scored the highest at 13pc, Italy at 7pc, the UK at 3pc and the US at 2pc.
However, Ireland can’t rest on its laurels. Even as governments make great strides in deploying innovative services, Accenture makes it clear that today’s leaders won’t necessarily be tomorrow’s leaders. In terms of the change between 2005 and 2006 in the percentage of citizens who reported that government services and departments that work together at least fairly effectively Ireland slid to -8pc compared with Finland +7pc and Italy +5pc.
Ian Slattery, senior executive at Accenture’s government practice in Ireland, said the Irish Government has a number of success stories in e-government such as the Revenue On-Line Service (ROS), but it needs to capitalise on the momentum that this has caused in terms of public confidence. “There is a desire for more of the same from Irish citizens. The feedback we get is that the Irish people are generally in favour of e-government channels and have a strong trust in government. Yet they are yearning for more accessibility and convenience.”
Slattery added that Irish people were not put off using e-government services by highly publicised IT disasters like last summer’s PPARS debacle. “I wouldn’t say it dented public confidence. It wasn’t a public-facing e-government system but an internal automation of HR within the health system. The Irish Government has a lot of good stories to tell about e-government and a track record that it needs to continue to build on.
“It’s all about driving out the old ways of doing things and the ROS and Motor Tax service are good examples of what can be achieved. The challenge for Ireland going forward is to continually evaluate its progress and guarantee the same levels of consistency of service and simplicity.
“People who have used such services have found them easy to use and quickly develop a trust in these services. The telephone, however, remains the most common channel for people to interact with their government in this country and there is still a job to be done in convincing people over 50 years of age to go online and interact with government. However, those that have used it have exhibited a strong following and a high level of confidence in the channel,” Slattery said.
Autor/Author: John Kennedy
Quelle/Source: Siliconrepublic, 23.05.2006
