Expanding Consular Affairs’ CX capabilities
A CASE STUDY
My roles
Business development
Workstream lead
Consular Affairs (CA) is the public face of the Department of State. It is a massive organization and as a result, initiatives to improve customer experiences tend to be unevenly distributed across the bureau. When they wanted to invest in improving the experiences of their customers, they came to the Centers of Excellence (CoE) for strategy and leadership.
I designed CoE’s largest customer experience project. We conducted foundational human-centered design activities across five workstreams:
CA/CX culture and policy
Overseas Citizens Services (OCS)
Passport Services
Travel.state.gov
Visa Services
I led the Passport Service workstream where our challenge was to create a foundation for human-centered design (HCD) while training and supporting their staff.
Solution: Conduct foundational customer research while bringing Passport Services staff and leadership along for the ride.
I managed a team of contractors. After conducting and analyzing a dozen stakeholder interviews to better understand the current state, I supervised user researchers in the creation of a foundational analysis of the needs of passport customers. The team researched two types of internal customers, call center staff and the people who adjudicate passport applications. That research informed a journey mapping workshop that I designed and facilitated with participants from across Passport Services.
A separate modernization effort emerged outside of our activities, which forced us to pivot to support the new work. I joined the modernization leadership team. We extended the initial customer research to develop service blueprints. I helped design and run a cross-departmental workshop, leveraging the service blueprints. We folded participant recommendations into modernization initiatives.
Impact
Passport Services leads all other Consular Affairs directorates in the breadth and depth of their HCD efforts. With our help, Passport Services staff and leadership developed and delivered their initial program of modernization initiatives.