The Baltimore Ravens football team is perhaps better known for its winning habits on the field and its rabid fans in the stands.

But the Social Security Administration turned to the NFL team because of its ability to use data to drive customer experience decisions. It also did not hurt that SSA’s headquarters are located in Baltimore County, Maryland, and many of the staff are big fans of the team.

Patrick Newbold, assistant commissioner and deputy chief information officer at SSA, said the Ravens are known for providing a great customer experience to their fans, so it just made sense that the agency would reach out.

“One of the questions we asked the Baltimore Ravens was how did business intelligence analysis change their service delivery model?” Newbold continued Ask the CIO. “The Ravens shared an excellent use case with us about how data was able to challenge one of their assumptions about fuck demographics. Early on, when they started collecting that data, those data disproved assumptions they had about their season cardholders. Their fans were much younger than the marketing assumed, so it made them change the music they played, the food and drinks they served, and how they engaged those fans.The data gave the Ravens some insights into fuck demographics that they , and enabled them to market to a growing demographic fan base to be exposed. “

The Ravens brought their chief data officer or equivalent position to the table to meet with leaders from SSA’s CIO, CDO and mission offices.

Like the way the Ravens use data to control decisions about how they serve their fans, SSA seeks to apply the same concepts to how they deliver their services.

“We want to use data to monitor and improve the way we do business and services, and deliver our services to our citizens,” Newbold said. “We also shared several challenges. One was the importance of data collection. The Baltimore Ravens utilize NFL-wide data as well as their Baltimore Ravens-specific data. They use this data to inform decisions. We at SSA want to create a primary source of SSA-wide data that is beyond assumptions and that supports the ad hoc, cross-cutting ability to perform some data analysis. Although we are completely different organizations, we have the same goals and mission desire when it comes to how we can use data to really inform the way we want to move forward. “

SSAs score better than average

Ravens, Newbold said, has a mature data and business intelligence practice, so excellent experience can only help SSA, which scored 64 in 2021. American Customer Service Index ratings. The federal government’s overall score was 63.4, while the Home Office got the highest score under the ACSI with a 77.

SSA’s 2020 data based on its surveys showed that 93% of the nearly 1,700 respondents rated their field office experience as “satisfactory,” but only 47% called it “excellent.”

Newbold said that among the biggest experiences from the conversation with Ravens was about the importance of data management because business intelligence platforms and tools are only as good as the data put into those capabilities.

“Key points that we learned from the Baltimore Ravens and through the discussions are really having the strong control, but they also highlighted how they use data as a tool, not as the final answer,” he said. “It resonates with us because as we invest more beyond technologies like an agency, we must also recognize that other factors emphasize decisions, so data is critical and important, but not the only factor.”

The Ravens is just one of several public and private organizations SSA meets to learn more about how they serve their customers.

Newbold said SSA has also met with JP MorganChase, the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, Fannie Mae and Target Corp.

“We also met with a couple of thought leaders since June, former General Motors CIO Ralph Szygenda and former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti,” he said. “We take these conversations, and we’ve highlighted three key lessons from those conversations, and we’re baking them into our strategy. They’s about governance, data, and culture.”

New strategy on the way

Newbold said SSA is updating its digital transformation strategy to include the customer experience experiences from all of these conversations.

SSA is collaborating with the US Digital Service on their modernization strategy and efforts.

Newbold said his office and mission areas are working with USDS to further expand their understanding of their customers and their journey to use SSA services.

“A major goal and expansion of our digital service offering is a redesign of our website to improve the user experience. To improve customer service, we plan to deepen our understanding of our customers, including what drives their evolving service. We will learn about our customers’ journeys from different service channels and touch points, and one of them is a voice from customer feedback.We want to capture customer feedback in real time, not only to use this feedback to assess what we have in place that works, but to identify customer pain to help us design these future digital services. “

To better understand these customer journeys, SSA and USDS held about 65 different sessions with multiple groups of people. This led to SSA using human-centered design techniques for the new beta version of their website, which was launched in April.

“For many of our services, and especially on mobile devices, we really want to ensure that we offer more digital options that can be exploited on mobile devices and from anywhere in it. We released an application that gives customers opportunity to express a protective intention to apply for supplementary social security income services online, “he said.” We have also prioritized in our plan the design and the mobile accessible online process that will upload forms and other documentation. “

Newbold added that SSA has received positive feedback so far from the upgrades and plans to expand its interactions and testing with customers.

Reducing the burden on customers

Going forward, Newbold said SSA plans to continue meeting with Ravens and other private sector organizations on a regular basis.

He said all the various public and private organizations are helping the agency learn more about how to create a better customer experience. SSA has also begun implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to advance its efforts.

“By reducing the burden on the public, we want to remove the requirement to run a business personally, present hard copies of original documents, remove the requirement for signatures on a document or allow for electronic signatures. These goals will require SSA to recreate business processes, program policies and enabling technologies, ”said Newbold. “We also want to modernize our enterprise IT systems. For example, our benefits management system has been cited by GAO as one of the 10 IT systems across the executive branch most in need of modernization. We has started modernizing the claims handling and case management software, but we will [to] continue to finish that work and pull back the old systems and modernize our benefits system remains a focus for us. “