Growing Customer Experience at DHS 

Growing Customer Experience at DHS 

A Journey to Prioritizing CX to improve people’s lives 

By prioritizing customer experience (CX), DHS is improving the way it serves its customers. This helps reduce the burden on the public and builds trust between the public and the government. DHS is looking to improve CX by measuring CX across the department. With the CX Maturity Assessment initiative DHS can find the opportunities to grow and identify ways to formalize CX at DHS. This will help DHS provide better access to services for everyone. 

The president's management agenda (PMA) and the CX Executive Order 14058 make customer experience a top priority across government. That means that many government agencies, including DHS, have been working to improve the way they serve their customers. Agencies are applying CX principles and practices in their mission work to create more fair and efficient services. These improvements are reducing the public burden and building trust. Which is amazing! 

But our customer focus shouldn’t stop at the services listed in the CX Executive Order or at the release of a new PMA. DHS customer experience will remain a critical factor to ensure a secure and resilient homeland well into the future.  

Improving Public Trust with CX at DHS 

To respond to threats and emergencies across diverse mission spaces, we rely on the cooperation of the public. We build trust and credibility by serving our customers well. This makes it more likely for people to cooperate by providing critical information and following guidelines to help keep our country safe. 

In response to a disaster, FEMA can apply a customer-focused approach to help people in their communities recover faster. Making the journey to access disaster relief easier means survivors and communities can rebound more quickly from natural disasters. 

During air travel, TSA can use CX practices to make the security screening process easier for passengers. They can do this by talking to customers and observing them directly to identify opportunities to improve. By using customer feedback, TSA can find new ways to improve the overall passenger experience and also make the airport more secure. 

At USCIS and CBP, CX practices can make it easier for immigrants to go through the immigration process. By understanding the needs of different types of immigrants, USCIS and CBP can make the process clear and organized. This will create a more fair and efficient process that builds trust in the immigration system. It may also help protect immigrants from the risk of exploitation and abuse. 

Join the Journey to Lasting Customer Centricity

So, how can DHS Components build the capacity to grow and maintain a customer-focused approach? 

To do our job of protecting the country and keeping up with the changes in the world, we need to work together to focus on the people we serve. This means being ready to understand and meet the changing needs and goals of our customers so that they trust us and want to work with us. By doing this, we can better protect our country from danger while providing better access to services.  

The DHS CX team is beginning the journey to lasting customer centricity. This is a collaborative effort with you, our Component counterparts, to measure CX maturity. This effort will identify practical ways to build capacity for more CX within your unique mission spaces. 

Over the next few weeks and months, we'll be working with each component to get a baseline that will allow us to measure your organization's CX over time. To learn more about the DHS CX Maturity Assessment initiative, contact Hector Perla: hector.perla@hq.dhs.gov