Anticipating the Effect of DOGE on Federal CX Initiatives

As Americans anticipate how the Trump administration will impact their day-to-day lives, a wide variety of concerns have risen to the surface. Among them are economic fears, with Americans afraid that prices of goods will rise (due to proposed tariffs on foreign-made goods), the price of healthcare will become unaffordable for most (due to proposed incentives for privatization), and a sentiment that this pro-business President will prioritize the needs of big businesses over employees and consumers. Only time will tell how policy will or will not bring these ideas to life. While the specifics of this administration’s projects and goals may not be fully clear until after Inauguration Day, the plans for one new agency are already underway and making policy plans public.

The Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) seeks to take on the project of reducing government costs to save taxpayer money and streamline processes. Elected officials on both sides of the political spectrum have championed efficiency in the past, and systems like Agile have helped to normalize process optimization as a universal business practice. The DOGE, however, plans to take an extreme approach to the issue by way of significant cuts to funding resulting in massive reductions in federal staff and elimination of entire programs. This focus on “efficiency” is meant to save the federal government billions of dollars. As we dive into the ways this will impact Americans as customers of the federal government, it is difficult to see how these changes, if legal, could result in prosperity.  

Walking back a commitment to improved customer experiences

In his first term, Trump outlined in his President’s Management Agenda a customer-centric promise, “Federal agencies will provide a modern, streamlined, and responsive customer experience across Government, comparable to leading private-sector organizations.” Government experiences tend to fall far behind the leading private-sector experiences, but recently, they’ve been better than ever. The importance of creating positive experiences for Americans, as well as tourists and immigrants, has received bipartisan support from the presidential level down to contact center leaders in many of our federal agencies. It has been a collective effort to raise the level of satisfaction with the federal government, and most notably within digital channels, more so than over the phone. Despite President Trump’s initial support for such ideas, the DOGE appears as though it will target these “non-essential” government teams in the name of efficiency.

“Department” is a bit of a misnomer, as the DOGE entity consists of founder-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy, billionaire Elon Musk, and no budgetary oversight–rather the duo will act as advisors to the president. According to their plans, initial action will take the form of cutting "the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended." The pair refer to the US Constitution as “their North Star,” justifying such drastic cuts by claiming the use of federal government resources that go beyond the basic, core functionality of each department is superfluous. They go as far to say that such excessive use of resources is “antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision.”

Another component of reducing department-wide budgets are layoffs, or reductions in force (RIF). Though these reductions are not purely budgetary, Ramaswamy has expressed fervent beliefs that a lack of productivity is plaguing the federal government, and a reduction in headcount coupled with an end to telework is the only solution. Leaders of many organizations have pushed employees back into the office this year, usually citing the importance of workplace culture. Ramaswamy’s firmer language about productivity may reflect a growing sentiment that some leaders are afraid to voice. 

Considering the implications of massive federal funding cuts

Anyone who has interacted with a federal agency has likely noted there is room for improvement in both the timeliness and effectiveness of their communications. Yet many forget that a decade ago many government transactions could not take place online at all. 2020 saw the first nationwide digital census, more than two decades into the era of public internet. Concerns about current government practices going beyond what the “founders would have wanted” are baseless because Americans of today interact with businesses, technology, and each other totally differently. Americans of centuries past rarely thought about junk mail, personal data breaches, spam calls, or criminally misleading advertising. Recent regulations and initiatives that have been enacted in every government agency have attempted to keep pace with the rapid innovation that continues to create new technologies. Regulation of technologies and business practices from the Department of Homeland Security to the Department of Agriculture to the Internal Revenue Service all seek to keep people safe. In this case, the absence of safeguards won’t just result in worse experiences filling out digital forms or longer hold times, they will put Americans in danger. 

Earlier this month, the Federal News Network hosted the “Customer Experience Strategies in Government Progress and Best Practices” forum for 2024. This discussion covered the ways major federal bodies are gradually moving the needle towards better customer experiences. One trend was abundantly clear: change in government programs takes a long time when even the most motivated, capable leaders are in charge. In most cases, Americans should recognize this is a good thing: considerable research and planning should be done before someone can make changes that will impact tens of millions of people and potentially disrupt the economy in a major way. Still, it is a misunderstanding that the government cannot change effectively, in fact, significant steps forward have been made in the past year to further digitize experiences. 

The Department of Homeland Security is improving ways to eliminate redundancy in interactions with customers, reducing customers’ time spent filling out forms, and requiring technology contracts to include prioritization of user experience design and service design. The Internal Revenue Service is rolling out a 1-pane agent assist tool that will enable faster and more efficient customer interactions and shorter holds. While initiatives like these are only now beginning to improve customer experiences, they are the result of years of research and thousands of training touchpoints. If CX programs are considered non-essential and cut, their momentum and value may be lost, and would take years to rebuild. 

Looking ahead

Amidst the uncertainty and speculation, it’s important to recognize that outsized reorganization efforts require a great deal of buy-in from different stakeholders, including the checks and balances that keep the branches of the government democratic. While rollbacks of federal CX initiatives would be disappointing for Americans, it is unlikely that the more drastic of these proposals come to fruition. While we bide our time, let this serve as a reminder of the importance of providing user feedback. There is no customer contact without customer data, and the federal government will continue to use feedback to make experiences better as long as they have the resources to do so.

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