Federal Contact Center Modernization

Role

Research lead and team director (2017) for the Office of American Innovation’s federal contact center modernization initiative, reporting directly to the White House to reduce government spending while improving customer service across agencies.

Challenge

Federal contact centers cost over $15 billion annually across government, yet delivered inconsistent and often frustrating experiences for citizens. The fragmented system forced callers to navigate multiple phone numbers for related services, with no ability to transfer between agencies or even departments within the same agency. During peak periods, some agencies like the IRS would simply hang up on callers due to volume overload.

The White House sought technological solutions to reduce costs and improve performance, but the underlying problems were more systemic than technical.

Approach

Industry Research and Best Practices

Led a comprehensive discovery sprint studying customer service leaders including Amazon, Apple, USAA, and Airbnb. Rather than looking for technology silver bullets, we focused on understanding operational principles and customer experience design that delivered measurable results.

Cross-Government Analysis

Documented the scope of federal contact center fragmentation - discovering that even internal government surveys vastly underestimated the scale. The Department of Veterans Affairs alone had over 1,800 contact centers when they estimated 275.

Human-Centered Recommendations

Developed solutions prioritizing customer experience fundamentals: consistent content across channels, clear self-service options, and the ability for citizens to reach knowledgeable humans who could actually solve their problems.

Key Findings

Technology Wasn't the Primary Problem

While AI, voice recognition, and automation offered efficiency gains, the core issues were organizational. The public needed seamless transfers between related services, consistent information across channels, and representatives empowered to resolve issues rather than redirect calls.

The “Defects” Framework

Adopted Amazon’s approach of treating every contact as a potential system failure - if someone needed to call, what could be improved upstream to eliminate that need? This shifted focus from managing call volume to preventing unnecessary contacts through better digital services.

Cross-Agency Coordination Gaps

Discovered that related government services operated in complete isolation, forcing citizens to repeat information and navigate bureaucratic boundaries that made no sense from a user perspective.

Impact

Organizational Transformation

The research directly led to establishment of two Centers of Excellence at GSA:

• Customer Experience Center of Excellence (government-wide service design)
• Contact Center Center of Excellence (operational improvements)

Team Leadership Development

Two team members I selected for the discovery sprint went on to lead these new offices, ensuring continuity between research insights and implementation.

Policy Framework

Created recommendations for government-wide customer experience strategy, standardized measurements, and shared service platforms that agencies could adopt to improve efficiency while reducing costs.

Strategic Approach

Focus on Service Design Over Technology

Rather than pursuing the expected technology recommendations, emphasized that sustainable improvements required customer experience thinking: understanding full user journeys, coordinating across touch points, and designing for citizen needs rather than agency convenience.

Systems Thinking for Cost Reduction

Demonstrated that the path to lower costs was through better service design - reducing repeat calls through clearer communications, enabling self-service through better digital experiences, and eliminating transfers through cross-agency coordination.

Long-term Vision

The work established a framework for treating citizen interactions as a coordinated system rather than isolated transactions. This approach influenced subsequent federal customer experience initiatives and demonstrated how research-driven recommendations could drive organizational change at the highest levels of government.

This project proved that even politically-driven initiatives could be grounded in user research and service design principles, creating lasting institutional change beyond the original political timeline.