Case Study: Reimagining Unemployment Assistance by Putting the Citizen Experience First
Servos with the State of South Dakota’s Department of Labor and Regulation
When I joined the Servos team, I quickly realized just how committed our team is to bringing the best possible digital experience to our clients, and we are proud to say this includes the State of South Dakota.
When we learned the State’s Department of Labor and Regulation (DLR) needed help transforming their site to digitize the citizen experience for unemployment assistance and create efficiencies in the workflow, our team was eager to partner with the Mount Rushmore State to solve this struggle so common to state and local government organizations.
Focusing on the Challenges
We soon learned the existing online application system left citizens frustrated with an outdated interface that was difficult to locate through the main site, and difficult to complete. There were limited built-in workflows or intuitive responses to the end user’s needs. Leadership in South Dakota sought to ease frustration for their citizens through implementing a more intuitive user experience. They'd visualized their own friend or family member accessing the site, and simply wanted a painless approach for filing a claim.
A second area of focus would be in solving the issue of limited or non-existent site accessibility, which made applying for benefits extremely difficult, or even impossible, for citizens with disabilities or with limited internet accessibility. We would need to ensure accessibility for all in our plan.
The current system also lacked an auto-fill feature that allowed for time saving tactics that would populate citizen-specific information. Additionally, the new site needed a ‘save’ feature in case the filing session needed to be cut short. We knew that when filing a claim, there is oftentimes additional paperwork to find, details to accurately follow up on, and dinners to be made, and didn’t want any effort lost.
Finally, we needed to address fraud prevention for the State. With limited features to date, South Dakota stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in fraudulent claims.
Our Process
With our Work Smarter Methodology, the Servos team focused on a human-first approach in forming solutions to these challenges. We leveraged our highly agile framework to drive our approach to the work for South Dakota in a specified timeframe that focused on their specific needs, creating an entirely customized response. With the framework complete, we were able to address each of these challenges and bring the vision of both teams to life, all while keeping our eye on the common goal of happier citizens.
Our Solutions
A cornerstone of our service offerings here at Servos is the Citizen Portal. With citizen-first architecture and our state and local government expertise, we prioritized offering a better experience for the end user when arriving to South Dakota’s DLR site location. A fresh, dynamic presentation now serves up information based on the citizen’s previous answers, while leveraging the full capacity of the ServiceNow data model.
An overarching goal of the project was increased accessibility for all citizens, regardless of ability, socio-economic background, or geographic location. The new citizen portal now allows a virtual agent to guide citizens to the most relevant information and services. There are also draft capabilities with 'save' features to let the citizen save as they go, and with full mobile responsiveness, citizens of South Dakota are completing and filing their claims, all from their smartphone.
Additionally, to help curb fraudulent filings, flags are now created if there are attempts to adjust user history. For instance, there will be a flag if employment history is altered or edited, helping to reduce user error and potentially save the State hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in false claims.
Andrew Szilvasi, Technology Development Director for South Dakota’s Department of Labor and Regulation, said, “We had a specific plan for the Department of Labor and Regulation Reemployment Assistance site with a clear priority for the citizen experience. Servos was just the partner we needed because of their expertise on the ServiceNow platform and with state and local government." The result? A true 21st Century experience for the citizens of South Dakota.
Download the full case study: Reimagining Unemployment Assistance by Putting the Citizen Experience First (Aug 2022)
About the Author
As our Director of Client Services, Doran McBride leads our team of Engagement Managers and Business Analysts in keeping our client’s projects on-track and our implementation teams running like well-oiled machines. She is proud to be the Client Manager for South Dakota’s multiple Digitial Citizen Services projects. In her free time, she enjoys traveling with her husband and cheering on her two children at their sporting events.