Customer-Centric Approach in the Public Sector (LT0034)

Brief description of the action

The action is aimed at strengthening dialogue and feedback between the public sector and society. This requires building customer-centric approach in the public sector and active implementation of practices rooted in customer-centricity, service quality, and the enhancement of dialogue within the public sector.

Key challenge addressed

The action aims to address the lack of dialogue and feedback between the public sector and society. The development of dialogue is fundamentally influenced by the trust in the government, which is, in the eyes of the people, considerably low.15 The reasons for this lack of trust include staff’s indifference to people’s concerns and expectations, their perceived unreliability and potential lack of honesty, and a deficiency in competence and empathy. This is further substantiated by the declining efficiency rate in administrative services and service delivery observed in recent years16, pointing to issues related to accessibility, employee competence, and responsiveness in addressing problems. Additionally, prolonged administrative and service delivery processes often impede the pace of communication. The accessibility of information, in its essence, should also promote dialogue between the government and the public. Nevertheless, despite the growing accessibility of information within public sector institutions, individuals often find difficulties in locating the information they require. This challenge stems from the surplus of information, a lack of structure, and a shortage of easily understandable content. In 2021, the transparency and accessibility rate of publicly available information from government institutions stood at 0.58 points.17 Public understanding of institutional competencies and governance framework remains limited, hindering effective dialogue. The percentage of the population unaware of how to reach out to authorities, offer suggestions, or file complaints is steadily on the rise18. The diminishing public engagement can result in one-sided decisions by the authorities, frequently failing to address the population’s needs and expectations. The deteriorating reputation of the public sector is detrimental to the development and stability of the state. Lastly, the constitutional mandate ‘state institutions shall serve the people’ is not upheld.

The root causes for the problem

Lack of leadership and responsibility for service quality and finding the best solution | Customer service units are not given sufficient attention within the organization and strategic planning of institutions. Policy-making ministries fail to establish service requirements, quality benchmarks, and performance indicators for the subordinate bodies concerned, resulting in a sluggish pace of change implementation in this field. The absence of inter-institutional cooperation often confines the resolution of citizens’ concerns to the institutional level, lacking a systemic and collaborative approach to problem- solving. The absence of standardized customer-centric and service quality-oriented practices | While legislation outlines fundamental requirements for serving individuals and handling their requests and complaints, these provisions are often subject to individual interpretation by institutions, leading to disparities in practices. There is no consistent service standard to build a uniform practice, leaving citizens without a mechanism to set service and quality expectations for institutions. Until now, a comprehensive policy on customer-oriented service and its quality has not been developed, leading to ambiguity regarding its components, advantages, implementation procedures, and an absence of a defined quality assessment mechanism. Insufficient service competency levels and the dissemination of best practices | Public sector institutions individually address issues related to the qualification improvement of their employees. This decentralized approach sometimes leads to a lack of leadership and does not always ensure an adequate level of knowledge and competence among service personnel. There is no common platform for learning, knowledge, and experience exchange to be used by service staff so as to enhance necessary skills. Lengthy, bureaucratic service delivery processes reduce the speed of communication and trust | While more services are being moved online, thereby becoming more accessible, undefined service delivery processes and redundant procedures continue to hinder the efficiency of service provision. Proactive communication by institutions can often reduce customer flows. Therefore, it is prudent to develop dissemination of customer-centric and needs-based information, leveraging digital and other communication-enhancing solutions.

Action description

Previous solution

• Given the situation, the updating efforts have been directed towards formal legal requirements for handling individual requests and complaints, and service standards for public administration entities - to little avail, however. • Various EU support investment measures have been implemented in municipalities, and a centralized project 'Public administration initiatives to improve service quality and customer service' has been carried out. Unfortunately, some actions failed to yield expected results, or their impact was insignificant. • The Office of the Government initiated an assessment of ministerial strategic plans and provided examples of setting goals and indicators for the service area. However, there has been lack of attention to this field to enable their implementation. • The Seimas Ombudsmen consistently emphasize the need for closer communication with citizens and the preparation of appropriate responses. However, these recommendations are often only partially implemented at the institutional level. • Since 2018, a network of customer service specialists has been established to facilitate the sharing of best practices and knowledge, promoting positive improvements. Certain institutions have taken the lead in implementing advanced customer service and enhancing service quality practices. • The Government Programme consistently incorporates measures aimed at fostering a customer- centric approach. These efforts are already underway, including the development of service description standards, a review of commitments, and a collaborative project with the UNDP to establish a customer satisfaction index.

Planned solution/action

As a response to this challenge, efforts will be made to cultivate a customer-centric approach across the public sector and actively implement practices rooted in customer-centricity, service quality, and the enhancement of dialogue in the public sector. The selected paths for implementation are as follows:

Building a customer-centric approach within institutions by enhancing competencies and sharing best practices (responsible bodies – the Public Management Agency, the Office of the Government, and the Ministry of the Interior): • Creating content for building competency in customer-centric mindset development and maintaining a continuously updated virtual learning and knowledge-sharing environment for public sector representatives. These training resources would incorporate innovative processes and cutting-edge teaching methodologies. • Implementing a series of hands-on training sessions designed for public sector staff, covering various aspects of customer-centric approaches: customer-centric policies, strategic planning for changes in customer service, revision, and optimization of customer service, managing customer service and its quality, content of customer service standard and its application, effective communication, and dialogue with people, etc. • Establishing and testing a mechanism for incentivizing the implementation of innovations in customer service and service quality improvement in the public sector (e.g., awards, assistance from foreign experts, etc.). • Developing a network of competencies for service professionals, fostering partnerships with forward-thinking organizations. This network would facilitate discussions, practical scenario simulations, also knowledge and experience exchange. • Encouraging the cultivation of best practices within municipalities by engaging municipal staff in competency development processes, ensuring a broader dissemination of customer-centric principles at the local level.

Implementing systemic measures for a customer-centric approach in the public sector (led by the Ministry of the Interior): • Developing an Exemplary customer service standard, which would detail the provisions governing the handling of customer requests and complaints in public administration entities. • Evaluating the information obligations imposed by state administration on individuals (customers) applying for administrative services and presenting recommendations to the Government for reducing these obligations. • Updating the methodology for calculating the Public service customer satisfaction index to make it more accessible and widely applicable for entities administering and providing public services. Developing Guidelines for the administrative and public service standards to help building a more uniform practice of administering and delivering services, which would be better aligned with the needs of service recipients.

Intended outcomes

By 2026, the customer-centric approach will be actively cultivated in the public sector, along with the practices rooted in customer-centricity, service quality, and the enhancement of dialogue. • A virtual learning and knowledge-sharing environment will be created, enabling institutional staff to acquire sustainable customer-centric skills. This will create the potential for implementing customer service improvement initiatives at the institutional level. This will lead to a stronger overall orientation of public governance institutions toward service recipients and service quality and will generate more institutional service quality initiatives. • Systemic measures (applicable to all entities providing and administering administrative or public services) will be developed and implemented. These measures will help standardize the processes of delivering administrative and public services, enhance transparency and efficiency in these processes, further improve the quality of administrative and public services, and reduce the administrative burden on service recipients. This action will contribute to the indicators set forth in the Public Governance Development Programme under 2022-2030 Development Programme run by the Ministry of the Interior. • Administrative service provision and service efficiency rate (deliverable for 2025: 0.90 points, for 2030: 0.92 points). • The share of the population who sought assistance from public management institutions and found the services provided satisfactory (deliverable for 2030: 90%).

The role of the action in advancing openness

How will the action contribute to increasing transparency, accountability and public participation in decision-making? Stronger competencies of public sector employees in fostering a customer-centric approach should naturally increase the responsibility and accountability of both employees and institutions towards the population. The required knowledge facilitates innovations in customer service and service quality improvement, intended to for information transparency, consumer opinion research, quality assessment, strategic planning, and more. The cultivation of the required customer-centric competencies and capabilities among employees will enable people to more actively express their opinions on the quality of service or assistance they receive. A smooth process for handling requests and complaints, coupled with proactive efforts to address issues of concern to individuals, will enhance public trust in institutions. Transparency and communication from institutions will encourage mutual dialogue.

Action implementation plan (Implementation step | Expected practical outcome | End date | Stakeholders)

Building a customer-centric approach within institutions by enhancing competencies and sharing best practices | 1. Creation of the content for building competency in customer-centric mindset development and a virtual learning and knowledge-sharing environment for public sector representatives. 2. Implementation of a series of hands-on training sessions designed for public sector staff, covering various aspects of customer-centric approaches.; 3. Tested mechanism for incentivizing the implementation of innovations in customer service and service quality improvement in the public sector. 4. Development of the network of competencies for service professionals, fostering partnerships with forward-thinking organizations. | Q4 2025; Q4 2024 | Responsible body – the Public Management Agency Stakeholders – the Office of the Government, ministries, their subordinate bodies, other public sector organisations, municipal administrations, experts in relevant field, service providers.; Responsible body – the Office of the Government Stakeholders – ministries, their subordinate bodies, other public sector organisations, municipal administrations

Implementing systemic measures for a customer-centric approach in the public sector | 1. Development of an Exemplary customer service standard. 2. Submitted recommendations to the Government for reducing information obligations imposed by state administration on individuals (customers) applying for administrative services. 3. Approved updated methodology for calculating the Public service customer satisfaction index. 4. Developed and approved Guidelines for the administrative and public service standards. | Q1 2024; Q2 2024; Q4 2024; Q1 2024 | Responsible body – the Ministry of the Interior Stakeholders – ministries and other entities providing and administering administrative and public services