Smart use of automation can enable governments to provide outstanding levels of citizen experience, driven by innovation.

Citizens expect an integrated offering, while the complexity of their needs is growing, including ageing populations that put increasing challenges on health and social services. However, government leaders face challenges as they have to compete for talent despite fund constraints and while data is stored in isolated silos. Considering all these aspects, it is no surprise that there is space to improve the citizen experience provided by government.

Public-sector leaders around the world recognise that the outstanding citizen experience has become paramount. It is driven by the need for governments to maintain the trust of their citizens that has been eroded in many countries.

It is also motivated by everyday expectations, which are shaped by the offerings of leading firms in the private sector, and is impelled by the complex and urgent needs of entire populations in crisis.

The public sector can generate several benefits by strengthening its services to provide a remarkable citizen experience. First, satisfied citizens are more likely to trust governments in achieving their mission.

In addition, satisfied citizens are far less inclined to return for follow-up appointments. Therefore, a well-run system processes fewer unnecessary visits and citizens do not return to their unresolved issues, complaints, or even legal actions. In addition, quick and effective assistance can boost the morale of government employees, which in turn reinforces the quality of service they provide.

Automation can help to create better customer services, considering that a well-designed automated service creates reliability and simplicity, minimises inaccuracy, and other mistakes, reducing needlessly extensive efforts on the part of citizens, as they have limited time and energy to engage with government.

In addition, automation can promote the citizen experience in government services by enabling civil servants to provide more complex and caring services. Considering that citizen expectations are increasing and populations are ageing, public services increasingly require skilled people to perform tasks that require a broad knowledge of processes and an empathetic attitude towards citizens. Automation may enable governments to deploy a greater number of client-facing staff who can provide high-value, dedicated service to citizens who need it.

In addition, automation of government services can offer personalised service delivery based on patterns in preexisting data for citizens (eg, with similar disabilities, family support histories, and other factors). Thus, automation allows the public service automation to propose services that are sensitive to the personal circumstances.

It is fundamental to look at automation from the perspective of the end-to-end citizen journey, allowing to combine human-centred design and automation.

In addition, there are at least three key factors that it is good to keep in mind when trying to automate citizen services that realise the greatest return on investment: simplicity, reliability, and consistency.

Finally, it is important to invest deeply in change management from the outset, considering that automation can cause deep disruption across all parts of an organisation and requires careful and considered coaching for employees and citizens throughout the process.