Humanity: Serve with empathy

Public service agencies that want to improve experiences should ground everything they do in appreciating people’s humanity—whether experiences are face-to-face or digital. 

Today, nearly one in three people feel they are treated more like a number than a human when they interact with government agencies. This is a signal that agencies could widen the aperture of how they see the people they serve. With a life-centric approach, agencies can see customers as they see themselves: unique individuals doing their best to make their way through life.

People still value “human” channels where they can feel “known” and connect with another person. This is especially true when they are accessing information (Figure 1). People prefer less “human” channels such as emails, letters, websites and texts when receiving information from agencies (Figure 2). These affinities signal a chance for agencies to determine which activities to digitize and which to direct to frontline staff.  

Agencies that solicit feedback and co-create solutions with people have more insight into the best ways to deploy digital solutions. Yet as personalized as digital solutions can be, people still need an “escape hatch.” This is the option to bring a human into the experience if a chat bot, IVR tree, online application or another digital tool isn’t helping them.