ServiceConnect: Accessing Information and Services at Australia’s Largest Government Department

Over 90,000 Defence personnel and staff serve Australia, but outdated, manual internal services caused frustration and errors, and diverted people’s attention from furthering Australia’s national interests. Interactions that could take a few seconds in the civilian world, could take weeks in the Defence world. The Directorates for Service Delivery aimed to create a seamless experience to access a huge range of internal services anytime, anywhere. This would require many disparate service providers to align their objectives, processes and systems to create a smooth customer experience; a difficult challenge at a massive scale.

CEC’s deep expertise in strategy, experience design and digital implementation empowered Defence to transform its customer experience. Through in-depth research, CEC identified customer goals, needs, and pain points across 12 customer journeys, interviewing over 340 customers. They then mapped the complex ecosystem of stakeholders, processes, policies, and systems to co-design the ideal experience with customers and stakeholders, defining a future state customer vision. These recommendations challenged existing architecture, mindsets, and policies across the entire organisation, driving change conversations with senior leadership. Finally, CEC packaged blueprints, designs, and recommendations into an agile delivery repository, ensuring a smooth transition to implementation.

The service design approach implemented in this large program of work revolutionised the way Defence creates solutions, with a focus on customer-centred, design-led, and evidence-based methodologies. This culminated in the deployment of ServiceConnect, a digital experience that will significantly enhance customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. The engagement of Defence stakeholders and adoption of new ways of thinking will lead to better spending of tax-payer dollars and greater ability for Defence personnel to further Australia's national interests. An estimated 30% uplift in customer satisfaction, ease of use, and operational efficiency is expected, making this a truly impactful and meaningful initiative.

Solutions were not ‘one-size-fits-all’: Different solutions were designed for each journey; ranging from creating a smoother front-end interface for a manual process, to innovating the business model for an existing service. All solutions were linked together and unified as one cohesive omnichannel experience. The research and service design effort was extensive, ranging from 3-6 months per customer journey. The breadth and depth of the 12 journeys covered ranged from submitting maintenance requests, to notifying a change in personal circumstances, to ordering food at the mess. Strong governance was established to ensure consistency in quality and deliverables, with 4 teams working concurrently on 4 journeys at a time. ResearchOps and DesignOps played a vital role in coordinating the work of the teams to converge and collaborate where customer needs overlapped. Outputs for each journey included: Research reports Ecosystem maps Process flows Service blueprints Annotated screen designs Service patterns and CX principles so future designs will remain consistent These artifacts were made to be easily consumed by the digital delivery team, e.g. documented in Azure Boards. Around 650 interviews were conducted with Defence personnel, staff, and stakeholders to gain buy-in and ensure their engagement with the process was easy and impactful.