How Abu Dhabi is eliminating government sludge

By Department of Government Enablement

Abu Dhabi’s Program for Effortless Customer Experience seeks to make public services effortless for users. Here’s the journey so far, according to His Excellency Saeed Al Mulla, Executive Director of Customer Experience Affairs at Abu Dhabi’s Department of Government Enablement.

In 2022, the Abu Dhabi government set a challenge for public sector bodies: 100 days to redesign services and eliminate government sludge. Image: Canva

In 2022, the Abu Dhabi government set a challenge for public sector bodies: 100 days to redesign services and eliminate government sludge – long waiting times, duplicated application efforts, unnecessary travel time – and make public services effortless. 

 

The goal of the Abu Dhabi Program for Effortless Customer Experience is, in the words of His Excellency Saeed Al Mulla, Executive Director of Customer Experience Affairs at Abu Dhabi’s Department of Government Enablement, “to ensure that every single service in the government can be effortless for our citizens, residents and tourists”. 

 

In practice, this means ensuring that every interaction between government and citizens, residents and tourists is as effective, efficient, and pleasant as possible, he says. This means speeding up service delivery, reducing the steps needed, improving ease of access, and skilling up staff. 

 

According to International Foundation for Customer Experience in Government’s Siim Sikkut, this program has been the most systematic effort by a government body to improve customer experience for citizens, due in no small part to strong political direction and a focus on human-centred design and development as well as pioneering efforts to engage and equip the frontline agents. 

 

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Charting the path to effortless 

 

It is crucial for governments to improve services because they are the sole provider of critical services, shared HE Saeed. Traditionally, since they are the sole providers of the services, governments globally have not always prioritised user experience – but the Abu Dhabi programme challenges that. 

 

“Because we’re the only providers, we must make sure our services are of the highest quality. There is no other alternative,” he says. Higher quality services can raise citizen satisfaction, reduce operational costs, and raise overall well-being, he explains. 

 
It is crucial for governments to improve services because they are the sole provider of critical services, shared HE Saeed. Image: HE Saeed Al Mulla

But how do agencies achieve effortless services? 

 

First, count the number of steps it takes. How many touchpoints? How many documents? How long does it take?  

 

“It can be as straightforward as using a stopwatch to track the time from when I begin searching for a service until it’s completed,” he explains.

 

“However, more advanced digital systems can now monitor the entire process, recording the touchpoints and interactions seamlessly.

 

If a service takes three days, can the agency streamline it to three minutes? If seven documents are required, can the agency integrate data from other entities to reduce that number to zero?” 

 

It is important to put a number to it, HE Saeed explains. That’s why the programme has developed an effort index score, which rates services based on speed, ease of use, and ease of access, amongst other factors. 

 

The other key success factor is supporting civil servants on the frontline in delivering services with “the utmost pleasure and professionalism”, he says.  

 

This is why the team has developed a customer service competency framework programme with University College of London (UCL) and Gov Design Academy to quantify staff performance. They have since assessed over 6,000 customer-facing staff and plan to raise scores to ensure that people can always rely on government staff when they need to. 

Redesigning services to meet needs 

 

To better meet user needs, the CX team brought together stakeholders to minilabs, which supported agencies in improving individual services, and bootcamps, which aimed to improve services related to key life events. 

 

The first week of each minilab is spent talking to users and mapping out challenges before discussing solutions in the second week. This process ensures that lead agencies truly understand pain points before ideating, HE Saeed explains. 

 

Take the case of clearing goods through customs. Prior to the redesign, some customers found it challenging to get clearance, having to rely on private sector agents to complete the complex transaction. 

 

The team redesigned the service by simplifying the procedures, introducing autofill, and enabling international users to apply using their passport. In doing so, they reduced the time taken by 60 per cent, touchpoints from 16 to 9, and saw a 3000 per cent increase in direct transactions in its pilot months. 

 

“We’re not about making incremental changes. This is about transforming the service to meet people’s needs and expectations,” said HE Saeed. 

 

Similarly, 10 government entities collaborated to identify challenges faced by people who had just lost a loved one. They have since introduced case managers who now contact citizens upon a loss, provide emotional support, and carry out the relevant procedures on their behalf. 

 

This significantly minimised number of touchpoints gives people the time and space to grieve in peace, he shares.  

 

“It’s about the impact that you have on people's lives.” 

Surprising insights 

 

This human-centric process can sometimes lead to surprising discoveries. While revamping a service which certifies that professionals, such as bus drivers, are performing their tasks in accordance with pre-established standards, the team realised that removing the digital channel could simplify the process. 

 

“The usual solution is to go digital to remove touchpoints,” noted HE Saeed. But since a physical assessment needs to happen anyway, it was simpler to let the assessment centre apply on behalf of the customer when they arrived at the centre. 

 

Rather than improving the digital frontend, they simply integrated the backend processes, reducing required touchpoints from 18 to 7. 

 

“It's all about embracing new rules, being adaptable and being open to challenging conventional ways and established mindsets” he explained. 

Institutionalising efforts 

 

After the successes of the first wave of transformation, what’s next for the team? 

 

Currently, the team has introduced a formal customer experience policy and guidelines to continue shaping service transformation in Abu Dhabi, with yearly priority setting to identify the key services for transformation, we also assess the maturity of our internal CX capability every year using the 4Ds model by the international foundation for customer experience in government and we have yearly targets to aim for. 

 

Similar to the efforts on our frontline public servants, our efforts on improving the CX maturity internally will help us expedite the increase on customer satisfaction and minimising customer efforts. 

 

To continue driving CX capabilities within Abu Dhabi, there are also plans to introduce CX awards to encourage innovation and recognise excellence in government CX. 

 

“We want people to spend more time doing what they want, with their family, the hobbies they love, rather than having to spend time on a service. HE Saeed said. 

 

Beyond that, they are aiming to set up a CX thinktank to gather like-minded government CX leaders from around the world. In addition to that, they hope to set up a CX forum to advance the thinking and literature around what CX in government looks like. 

 

“We want to create a legacy of world class customer experience and set a precedence for service excellence worldwide. We want to learn from the world and advance the thinking of CX for the overall well-being of Abu Dhabi and the global society as well.” 


To learn more about the Foundation’s recent report on the emerging trends around customer experience in government, click here. To read about Abu Dhabi’s approach to GCX, click here

 

This article was produced in partnership with Abu Dhabi's Department of Government Enablement.