Our nation’s Veterans and their families count on VA for quality care and consistent customer service. To fulfill its mission, VA needs effective and efficient IT services from VA’s OIT.
The CXDS Program allows OIT to continually provide, evaluate and improve IT services for VA. The program team conducts research and gathers and analyzes data to capture the holistic experience of customers who use OIT services.
This evaluation requires gathering insightful data on the products and services OIT provides VA employees, contractors and affiliates, and presenting the analysis and actionable findings to VA leadership.
To meet its own high standards for performance and service, VA partnered with Aptive through the Customer Service Improvement (CSI) Program contract for the agile management and customer experience measurement and analysis needed to gather, understand and disseminate feedback from OIT customers.
Precise data and a robust framework inform recommendations for system improvements.
VA devised a unique strategy to anonymously survey all VA employees and contractors who use VA IT systems. Aptive planned, executed and analyzed monthly and annual surveys that asked VA employees and contractors to:
VA and Aptive designed and delivered the annual survey to about 500,000 VA employees and contractors. In addition, over 30,000 randomly selected VA employees complete a monthly customer experience survey. With this survey data, Aptive performs longitudinal statistical studies and analyzes the results.
Although most feedback is positive, employees also share their concerns. To better understand areas of dissatisfaction that respondents highlight in their surveys and determine the root causes, Aptive and VA conducted individual, in-person and virtual interviews, workshops and focus groups at VA sites across the nation. The OIT leadership and community at large received the resulting analysis and reports through multiple channels.
Aptive built a supporting framework for the CSI Program. This support included communicating best practices for IT customer service through a series of training videos, infographics and monthly newsletters. These materials are based on CSI’s “The Eight Habits of Highly Effective IT Professionals.”
Aptive also developed a custom dashboard for OIT leaders and managers to view survey data.
VA and Aptive host formal seminars to communicate best practices to frontline customer service personnel. These seminars reflect the findings from regular quantitative and qualitative surveys that read the pulse of OIT’s customers across VA.
With high-level briefings, monthly newsletters and data dashboards, OIT leaders, managers and staff can track specific business practices to determine which produce high-quality results consistent with fulfilling the mission of VA —and which practices need improvement. Aptive keeps a finger on the pulse of industry best practices and makes recommendations to OIT leadership to improve practices and services.
OIT managers responded positively to Aptive’s communications and training efforts. VA area managers responsible for IT support at VA facilities anecdotally report they consistently use the new materials to train and motivate their employees and are eager for additional resources and materials to help provide the highest quality service to VA employees and contractors.
