Questions/Answers

Customer Happiness 2016 studies shown that UAE Federal Government customers happiness were (67%) driven by community inclusiveness. The UAE government, under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), has embarked upon the development of the Customer Happiness Factory (CHF) as a project to increase public engagement in decision making. CHF is launch pad lab consisting of number of workshops, training, and one to one coaching sessions with customers and Public administrators. Around 80 employees were divided into group of 8 integrated service. It focus on developing minimum viable service (prototype) with customers and private sector by adopting co-creation method of human centered design. Problems:Low public satisfaction in key services such as emergency, retirement, studying abroad, and other services. And low satisfaction of employees, time to get service, and smart services. •The public had limited channel to be engaged in designing government services such as public satisfaction survey, which were not detailed and did not help in customizing the solutions. •Low collaboration between public, private sector, local and federal government when it comes to developing or enhancing an integrated government service. •The red-tape bureaucratic culture and weak capabilities of improving services. The services developed in silos, so they become time consuming, costly, and complicated. Solution:Created an innovation launch pad project that bring all stakeholders on the table to work on the integrated services within a set period with a specific goal that unites all efforts. •Identified key change public administrators in the government bodies who can accelerate the wheel of change within organizations. •Provide practical Human centered design toolkit and methods. Conducted (7) training workshops, (5) service surgery one-on-one, (15) meetings to educate public administrators with tools and methods of designing customer journey and innovative solutions.

 1. Achieve UAE objective of being among the best government in the world by 2021 and one of the top countries by 2071.  2. Increase public happiness of government service delivery and increase smart services adoption rate by 80% by 2018.  3. Community lead government were customers are steering the wheel of development of government services in collaboration with both government and private sector.  4. Streamline decisions making and collaboration between public servants when designing and developing integrated services.  5. Create a venue and a program to co-innovate with all stakeholders including: (public, government, and private sector).  6. Customize service for different segments, age group, income level, nationality, and gender.  7. Create a cultural change to focus on human centricity in developing government services.  8. Build service design capabilities of (80) public administrators.  9. Improve integrated services based on customers’ life events from birth to retiring.  10. Improve service that are related to individuals as well as companies.  11. Make customers the central focus for coming with solutions for issues of public services, and decision making process.

Partnership for goals category specifically goal number (17.17) was chosen. The CHF fits perfectly since it focus on co-creating customer happiness through partnership between public, government and private effectively and efficiently. This participatory method of engagement helps in promoting partnership to achieve UAE vision and goals of enhancing the quality of life through service development, interactions and team-building exercises; the workshops helped strengthen the partnership relationship between all stakeholders from different backgrounds (age, gender, race, nationality, economic level and other community segments). Each sector had different type of partnership; in the health sector, emergency team collaborated with companies to develop home emergency call devices. Having a baby group collaborated with hospitals in registering the baby and applying at the hospitals, which created an added value for hospitals as excellent service for their customers. This network helped in using all of its power, resources and links in making better decisions and implementing effective solutions for the good of the public. A good example is partnership with (interns me) a non-profit company that already have network of 600 companies providing training for youth, in exchange the ministry of education would share with them students data and develop a career path for students.

All stakeholders’ inclusion in decision making have increased customer satisfaction of partnership by (66%). This substitutes the public administrators’ old way of design solution based on their expertise. The (45) government entities gained the skill of human centered design. The adopted methodology is (Discover, define, develop and deliver). First, discover stage emphasized in qualitative research techniques like in depth interviews to encourage public service professionals to listen more carefully to citizens. Second is define stage, were public administrators focused on the customer issue. Then the develop stage of idea generation focusing on many ideas from customers “non-experts”. Co-creating services with customers produces the best service that fit the end user’s needs and expectations, by engaging the customer in the design of the service, taking the feedback of customers directly and incorporating it into the design. Here they used quick and inexpensive prototypes like models, role-plays and paper wireframes that could be easily and effectively tested. Finally, deliver after various iterations and changes of the prototype with minimum costs, the team reach the best minimum viable services (MVS) that help get buy-ins form key decision makers at the government level. These MVS were developed for public sector including health, education and society.

The CHF was launched after listening to public problems in certain aspects of main society life events. The best-designed way adopted was the co-creation lead by different segments (youth, families, investors, students, employees, retirement both female and male including citizens and residents). The service lab addressed the following segments problems: 1. Having a baby: 34,000 frustrated parents hate repeated documentation and visits to different agencies to issue documents. 2. Studying abroad: 6,000 youth are not aware of different scholarships and parents are concerned about their children studying abroad. 3. Finding a job: Approximately 9,000 young people cannot find a job. 4. Getting married: Around 18,000 engaged couples complain of privacy issues when getting medical checks. 5. Emergency: 42,000 patients needs 4.5 hours to get treated in medical emergency. 6. Retirement: Around 20,000 people worry about not working and can feel that they are no longer valued. 7. Working in UAE: 600,000 employees face problems of visiting several departments in a process that takes several days for permits to work in UAE. 8. Starting a business: Around 370,000 companies are frustrated with starting a business due to around 14 visit to different government entities.

CHF provided design tools and workshops to teach public administrators to engage with the society in leading solutions for bundles of services. Some of solutions for CHF applied includes: 1.Having a baby: Data submission can be done online or at hospitals with only one visit to government body and documents will be home delivered in a gift box. 2.Studying abroad: One online gateway for different scholarships information, and a network portal of experienced students connected to both new students and parents. 3.Finding a job: A website for temporary training for youth to test jobs, and connect with employers for potential work opportunities. 4.Getting married: Home service medical checkup provides privacy and counseling. 5.Emergency services: An emergency house alarm device that change clinics to emergency centers reduced time to ten minutes, and saved lives. 6.Retirement: Proactive awareness of pension plans and annual celebration of retiree to thank them for their contribution. 7.Working in UAE: An informational portal about working in UAE that provides an automated process for singing offers which protect both parties’ rights. 8.Starting a business: online one-stop shop for customers covering all the necessary stages to encourage entrepreneurship.

It is a holistic innovation program focusing on sectors such as health, society, education, economy, and it addresses issues segments in the society such as youth, families, couples, retiree, students, and business. The diversity of the issues provides great experience of different innovative solutions and partnership method for decision-making that suites each segment. The Customer Happiness factory is a hybrid between a service lab and a co-creation venue for all stakeholders to work together. The innovative part is the partnership projects that takes entities from their silos and work together on developing minimum viable service that achieve a specific goal of satisfying customers. The creative part is focusing on the integrated services that a stand-alone entity could not deliver by itself. Hence, collaboration and teamwork became important to achieve objective. The trial and error culture shift helped public administrators take risks and go out of the box of government standard way for improving services. It is a first of its kind as an innovative launch pad and unique mechanism for integrated services in the Middle East and even in the world for federal government integrated services based on life events.

The innovation is a hybrid of different practices in different countries. From United Kingdom we used the methodology of service launch pad from who started implementing a minimum viable services as output of innovation lab. Therefore, it is not just brainstorming, but an initial prototype of the desired output of the services. In addition, Canada was also used as a benchmark when choosing the bundles based on life events such as having a baby or starting a business. Other international trends were incorporated in this project such as human centered design, emotional experience of customers were taken into consideration when redesigning the whole experience. The added value is that although equal level of service, opportunity in the society, non-discrimination in gender, segments, age group, and elderly is important principle in the design for government service in UAE. By choosing a citizen-driven approach to service design, the UAE would become the first country in the world to prioritize citizen needs in the name of improving customer satisfaction. Consequently, (89%) of customers and public administrator are satisfied with the innovation of CHF.

1.The project was led by Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and the future, and had an initial cost for consulting and training fee of Dh800,000 and other marketing cost, in addition to minor cost for developing some of the prototypes. 2.Used some free smart application to communicate and work on plans such as slack. Also, used social media to promote the progress of groups and bundles as engagement with the public. 3.Some cost of prototypes was done by students as volunteer work, other government bodies, and some was provided by the private sector without any cost. 4.The final exhibition and marketing the event of customer happiness factory have been covered by Prime Minister Office for all government entities around Dh 2,000,000. 5.Manpower mainly was from entities, and coaches were from PMO. 6.Interviews, research and observation and reports were done all by the teams in house without cost.

Oui

This initiative is adaptable, and has various tools and manuals to learn how to design public services with customers. This practice was shared in 2016 with other companies and government around the world during the 9th Global service design conference in Holland. It was one of the key presentations in the event due to its innovation. Lessons learnt were shared with experts in the service design field. This project also inspired the development of other projects in the UAE such as the government accelerator that focused on developing a prototype. Some of the bundles such as having a baby have been put into these accelerators to get it to the public and have it up and running. Furthermore, the development of service, one which is a future government center utilized the method of co-creation and integrated bundles in its center. It used some of the bundles in the center, and continued developing it and launched for the public to use. Other local governments in other cities have learnt from the federal government, especially Dubai city. Other countries that have signed MOU’s with PMO such as Malta have benefited from such expertise in service design.

The CHF have sustainable plans and projects that affect the federal government service improvement, social, economic and environment aspect. Currently we are developing the Customer Happiness Factory 2.0 and focusing on other new bundles such as disabled services, embassies services, children protection services, woman services and low payed labor. A co-creation room was designated to test methods of understanding customers such as ethnographic, observing customer behavior and preference in using apps. Sustaining the economical results by continue focusing on reducing cost, adopting new technologies, reduce service centers and number of visits. For instance, CHF is contributing to the saving of Dh 15,000,000 and generating Dh 4,500,000 from raising cost of extra home delivery service. In addition, the innovation in services have showed a dramatically estimated reduction of 53% of time to get a service around 100,312,800 hours. Almost 1,187,000 people are affected by the changes made in this project, and continuing the developing and scalability of implementation to other emirates will increase the benefit. Lives will be saved by reducing the time to response from 189,000 hours to just 4,200 hours. Also, environmentally the emergency centers will stop building new hospitals and instead would increase using of current 44 centers in northern emirates. The load of emergency cases will be re-distributed from (8400) case per the (5) hospitals to (290) cases per each center for the whole year. Traveling will be reduced not only to hospitals but also to service centers and that reduction of (98%) of 686,250,000 km travel, will reduce tons of carbon emissions. Also, the roads quality will not be damaged and hence the durability of roads will be extended by years. Also, 1,241 trees will be saved due to reduction in using only 490,000 paper documents instead of 19,988,000 documents.

We created the specific service lab unit within the PMO organizational structure with strategic and operational plans to sustain service factory operations. In addition, a designated location was built as a co-creation area to engage with customers on daily basis for improving government services. Furthermore, each of the customer happiness bundles had a different track of sustaining the development of innovation to match its nature. Some focused on governance structure, for instance “khebraty” was a project engaging all (8) government entities that helped the youth in changing their behavior from secondary till they find a job. A memorandum of understanding between all parties was important, to share data between entities and track the student change in preference and behavior according to the intervention. In addition, one entity became a sponsor of a project, and was a key in sustaining other engagements. A good example would be having a baby sub-initiative, were ministry of interior adopted the project and collaborated with other stakeholders in making it happen. The other method is channeling the prototype in other channels of service delivery such as service one center and government accelerator. Other projects were left to the entities who are lead in the project. In addition, part of enabling the culture to engage in designing their life, there will be training for citizens and residence on how to adopt design thinking as part of the everyday life. In each sector we are planning to create champions from the public for instance, students for education, patients and doctors for health, women and disabled for society and entrepreneurs for economy and youngsters for future services.

Oui

The initiative has gone through various types of evolution both internal and external. External evaluation from Said business school at Oxford University, and from stakeholder evaluation from survey, and internal impact evaluation. First, Said business school reviewed best practices, the customer happiness factory and its bundles, then came up with conclusion and recommendations. Second, is engaging the public and key stakeholders in evaluating the project by participating in surveys. All participants such as users of services, or customers who participated in the design, public administrator, and the private sector who were engaged in the design also participated. They evaluated the project as a whole and its impact on efficiency, satisfaction, improving time, innovation, reduce process and other criteria; participants were asked for future recommendation for customer happiness factory 2.0. An internal impact evaluation report of the initiative was conducted evaluating the project relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability. It used various measurement and outputs gathered from each bundle of services to see how they have been able to meet the project objectives. In addition, it incorporated all external reports such as surveys and Said business school report to provide a holistic evaluation report to management.

The key outcome of the evaluation, is that the project have created a cultural change in shifting public administrator to focus on customers when designing government services. (79%) was the satisfaction rate of cultural change. In addition, CHF was an efficient and effective project to attain its goal of collaborating public and government in developing government services. Key success is gaining the public administrator key service design skills and tools to improve government services not only in those bundles but also with every service in each government body. The high satisfaction rate of (89%) have impacted the continuous progress of the CHF to develop new projects. Some feedback came about working with local government, other countries Malta, other countries, public opinion about sharing these practices in global events and creating a bundle for embassies which are one of the touch points that customers make first impression about the UAE government. Participants and customers are 92% satisfied with the enhance experience and improved quality of service. Both service efficiency and reduction of visits have gained (89%) satisfaction score. (82%) is result of service outcome and impact satisfaction and (84%) are satisfied with the improvement specifically to the integrated services.

The key indicators were used included customers satisfaction, time reduction, process reduction, enhanced customer experience, effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, impact measurement and sustainability of the project. For instance for customer satisfaction we looked at all stakeholders including government entities as participants, private sector, participants from customers and users. The users were different due to the targeted segment for each of the bundles. Each process were measured from quality of service improvements including reduction of time, reduction of process steps, reduction in duplication of paper work, reduction in cost and even enhance in customer experience. For instance, having a baby bundle reduced the number of visits to only one-step, and reduced the time of getting a service and managed to deliver several services by one-step by the customers. By just applying once, the customer can have the new baby birth certificate, passport and government identification as well as a gift. The indicator of satisfaction covered (55%) of public and (45%) of government. (68%) of participants in the survey were in the age group (20-39), while (32%) were from (40-59). Inclusiveness of female is important and represented (42%), while men (58%).

This project have engaged various stakeholders such as customers, public administrator and even private sector. First, 80 public administrators who came from service background and were educated and certified in customer services and engaged on daily bases with customers in service centers. They were on high level of decision making such as directors or advisors in customer service expertise. They were service development pioneers teams created to lead change in services in government entities and be service design change champions within government entities. There key responsibility was to design and improve the service bundle in partnership with customers and private sector. Next group were the (400) customers who participated in reviewing the service and giving feedback on how to improve it after testing it. For instance 189 customers were approached to evaluate the two options of getting married medical checkup, they found out that (66%) preferred the one stop shop service center while the reaming group were willing to pay Dh200 more to get home service delivery. They varied in terms of profile depending on the integrated service life bundle. Finally are the private sector, such as employment companies in different fields, hospitals, recruiting companies, and other private sector. Their role was engaged in designing, testing the prototype and evaluating it at the end. (79%) participants are satisfied with enhanced communication with the government. Due to engagement customers, private sector and government are satisfied by (87%) with the new way of inclusiveness in decision-making. Also, (79%) are satisfied with this project spreading the culture of services design and co-creation with all segments of society.

1. Improve integrated services of one stop shop needed to engage all stakeholders from citizen, government and private sector. 2. Hands on training is key in obtaining skills of service design and changing their current way of developing services 3. Awards and motivation is key for pushing groups to work harder and more innovatively in developing government services. 4. Leadership support of this initiative is essential to make things happen and ease implementation. 5. Changing the culture of perfectionist to accepting failure is key when using trial and error method of developing different prototype of services. 6. Partnership is key for the success of improvement in integrated services and insuring public private partnership that include customers. 7. Method of implementing and governing structure of projects is important to sustain the development and implementation of the service bundles. 8. Transformation from traditional service to smart service should be human centered design with an adoption strategy that based on customers behavior and preference. 9. Emphasize the focus on collaboration and competing as a society both government and citizens with other nations providing public services.