Aaron B.
Member
Posted 24-Nov-2005 07:14 PM
The implementation of a CRM strategy to serve citizens is a task that requires considerations different from those related to a private company. Which considerations are relevant to a CRM project on eGovernment initiatives, specifically for Government Agencies that collects taxes and/or enforces the tax laws?
Aaron Barrantes
www.zonacrm.com
Graham Hill
Guru
Member
Posted 25-Nov-2005 01:52 AM
Aaron
I would like to challenge your suggestion that CRM is appropriate for a government agency responsible for tax collection.
It is my belief and experience that governments universally would almost be better off focussing their energies on simplifying taxation, making the workings of taxation (both collection and repayment) transparent to the citizen and using taxation to support economic growth & development, rather than on "cosmetic surgery" such as CRM.
That doesn't mean that I am universally in favour of lower taxation (although that is generally the aim in most advanced free-market economies), just simpler, better, more effective taxation.
I suggest that you read Patrick Barwise's book "Simply Better" if you are interested in knowing more. It doesn't look at government or taxation in particular, but the principles discussed in the book are universally applicable.
If ever there was in institution that was generally in dire need of being made simply better it is government and taxation in particular.
Graham Hill
Independent Management Consultant
Mei Lin Fung
Member
Picture of Mei Lin Fung
Posted 08-Dec-2005 12:19 PM
Graham
Of course taxation should be made simpler and better. But that doesn't mean that CRM is not important for Government Agencies that collect taxes and enforce laws.
CRM is NOT just about "cosmetic surgery", and I know if we hadn't touched your hot button of taxation, you also know that the reason we are all in this CRM Discussion is that we believe CRM can make a difference that is deeper than cosmetic.
In a taxation agency, the cooperation of the citizens is vital. To enlist this cooperation it is important to Build relationships with citizens in which they believe in that their taxes will be fairly collected and used for public goods from which all benefit.
If CRM were properly practiced by taxation agencies, citizen tax payers would be able to see what they are "buying" with their taxes, what benefits accrue to them from this tax. They would also be offered a degree of accountability that is missing today, as to how well public funds are utilized. For example, law enforcement is much more economically done by government than by any private individual or group. Public education has been essential in raising the overall standard of living over multiple generations.
Public agencies like those implementing taxation and law enforcement can benefit greatly from CRM principles and technologies that can help to build relationships with citizens based on trust, synergy and mutual benefit. CRM brings in new capabilities for better intelligent communication through the use of multi-media contact centers, performance measures for accountability and the ability to track outcomes in order to continously improve results.
These capabilities can be developed, and should be harnessed to drive the deep changes required to make taxation simpler and public spending more accountable to the citizens.
Graham Hill
Guru
Member
Posted 14-Dec-2005 12:05 AM
Mei Lin
In some ways I agree with you. Effective taxation is generally required to adhere to five principles: It must be adequate to provide for government spending. It must be fair in distributing its burden. It must be paid by all those who enjoy the benefits of the government services it funds. It must not directly influence economic decisions. And it must be simple to administer. As you suggest, effective taxation is generally easier to collect as it is more willingly paid.
Over time, most taxation systems stray from these principles. In particular, they become fiendishly complex. This creates an incentive to use loopholes for material advantage, particularly for those who pay higher taxes and have the most to gain through exploiting them. Which in turn creates the perception of unfairness, particularly for those who have the least to gain through exploiting them. This is the situation in most free-market democracies today. And most governments recognise the problem and are trying to simplify taxation.
Unfortunately, your suggestion to use CRM to explain to citizens how well taxation has been used by government looks suspiciously like PR & "spin".
Experience has shown that governments are often poor at spending money collected through taxation. The number of white elephants unwillingly funded by taxpayers is long and inglorious. Just look at "pork-barrel" politics in the USA. Although governmental accounting organisations have been effective at rooting-out waste and inefficiency, external NGOs have often been much more effective. Sadly, government spending generally needs to be challenged from outside if its efficiency and effectiveness is to be increased, not just communicated at citizens from inside. That doesn't mean that communication isn't important, on the contrary, but it does mean that having an independent source for unbiased information is important.
Governments are generally anything but unbiased. Free-market democratic governments know that the right information, broadcast in the right way, at the right time is often the key to re-election. Hardly a situation that generates trust & commitment in government communications.
The romans had a phrase: "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", which roughly translates to "who watches the watchmen". This applies to taxation more than most other government functions.
Graham Hill
Malcolm Wicks
Member
Posted 15-Dec-2005 09:28 AM
Anyone we take money from, or deliver a service to deserves to be treated as a valued customer. In both Public and Private sectors taking a different position is sure to be painful.
Malcolm Wicks
Khun Per
Member
Posted 15-Dec-2005 04:08 PM
Mei Lin and Graham,
You are both right and wrong!
CRM is completely wrong when it only focusses on the "Customer"! I know Tom Siebel would disagree, but that is why Larry now owns Siebel and not the other way around!!!
CRM leaves out a very critical aspect, namely, how the "customer" sees the organisation, he or she is supposed to have a "relationship" with!
This is where Experience Based Management comes in: how does the "stakeholder" feel about the relationship with the organisation.
Now, if the stakeholder is a taxpayer, then there is every reason to get to know if he or she is happy or pissed off with the tax authority, because it is stil a "revenue" generation relationship and the taxpayer could "churn" if he or she gets too fed up (leave the juristiction of the tax authority)!
My view about CRM/EBM in government is very simple: give me a chance to vote on every single transaction I have with the buggers: Frown or Smile ....but more importantly, make it actionable. Make government accountable for their actions (or non-actions) then we have a true democracy. EBM does this, in real-time! How powerful would that be for Bush or Blair right now?
EBM me!
Rafael Rodriguez
Member
Posted 15-Dec-2005 04:28 PM
Mei Lin and Graham, are both Right
It is a matter of perspective. We all know how difficult it is to agree upon what CRM really is, but we all have a clear idea of what it is not. Any initiative geared towards making life easier for customers, getting closer to them and acquiring knowledge about them that is further utilized to improve our relationship with customers, falls within the realm of CRM.
Shouldn't then we say the same about government initiatives?. Why not?. I would think that when tax authorities implement electronic means for paying taxes (citizen-government-transactions), when they make the "workings of taxation (both collection and repayment) transparent to the citizen"; when tax forms are simplified, when Contact Centers are set up to communicate with citizens; when specialized portals are made available to inform, calculate and submit taxes; when roads are built or repaired or new schools and hospitals are constructed with tax money and citizens are properly informed; results oriented governments—tax agencies in this case—are doing gCRM (government CRM).
In short, whenever government—tax agency or else—strives to do the right things, at the right time at the right costs to benefit citizens, I would say they are doing gCRM. They are in a "citizenthinking" mode, or whatever we may want to call it. They are somehow touching on the very basics of whatever CRM principles we'd like to adhere to as a framework
For that matter, I would dare to say that almost any e-government initiative could be considered a gCRM initiative. At the end, what's the difference and is there a way to precisely define what CRM is or is not in government?. As with private sector, the results do not always turn right, nor efficient or effective (government corruption and white elephants are cases of poor CRM).
Isn't it true that good and bad governments, as well as good and bad politicians, constantly take care of their most valuable customers (large tax payers and campaign contributors) and cross/up-sale to their constituencies to gain their loyalty in order to get elected/re-elected?. They make promises based on the knowledge they possess about their "customers" and from time to time, some even do deliver what their market has demanded. Yes, more often than not, their value propositions are just "cosmetic surgery", that sooner or later vanishes when constituents' experience—a result of watching the watchman—make them realize that their tax dollars have being wasted. It is precisely out this scrutiny that many governments (England, Australia, Nordic Countries, and many others ) and public agencies have began to adopt and adapt schemes such as balanced scorecard and CRM to make sure they are able to fulfill the needs and expectations of their communities.
Jim Sterne
Guru
Member
Picture of Jim Sterne
Posted 15-Dec-2005 08:31 PM
Originally posted by Aaron B.:
Which considerations are relevant to a CRM project on eGovernment initiatives, specifically for Government Agencies that collects taxes and/or enforces the tax laws?
If I know my constituent better, I can serve them better. That's fine. If they are happier with my services, they will support a vote for maintaining or increasing my budget. That's better. But when it comes to taxation, the relevant consideration is: Do I know my constituents well enough to make it easier for them to pay their taxes? If so—I collect more revenue!
If you've ever worked CRM into the collections process at a commercial establishment, then you can see we're talkikng about the same thing.
Jim Sterne
Target Marketing www.targeting.com
Emetrics Summit
Web Analytics Conference
www.emetrics.org
Helmar
Member
Posted 20-Dec-2005 04:11 AM
My take: as CRM is still largely seen as a tactical tool to increase revenue ("screw more customers for less") rather than an all-emcompassing 'philostrategy' (you read the term here first!) that allows the CRM driver to find out more about his 'constituency', CRM will fail in goverment just as miserably as it has failed in the private sector.
Only if attributes like openness, honesty, trust and respect are at the centrepoint of any organisation's operation, CRM will stand a chance to be successful—but then it may not fulfill the weird expectations many executives have about it. However, then -and only then- will it be a positively contributing force to both the process, the end result and society at large. Any other way it will make the customer more wary, more cynical, less loyal and far more inclined to screw the very entitiy that is trying to get the most out of them. As if the customer is something that can be milked forever.
My uneducated guess is that in government circles there is far less a propensity to serve the customer than in the average business. Not because the level of fear is lower, but because in most cases the system has become so self-serving, disrespectful and downright abusive of its constituency that that looking after someone else's interests (which is what CRM is really all about) must be the very last thing on their mind—if they have one, that is.
Cynical, negative? Perhaps the result of living too long in South Africa, but unless personal experience, 3rd party anecdotes and press reports can be discarded altogether, I doubt it's much different anywhere in the world.
That said, prompted by an article written by Gerry McGovern on Motor Tax in Ireland and weeding out my bookmarks, I came across an example of what I perceive excellent government-constituency relations, at least on the Internet:
The Government of the State of Paraná, Brasil
One mother of a website with almost 600k to download, but an amazing array of 'serviços rápidos'—I am sure an example for many so-called 'developed countries' to learn from. On that note, Curitiba, the capital of Paraná, has been lauded in many places for its concern about its citizens and the environment they live in. Probably not coincidentally, and definitely off-topic, when asked a friend where he would move to if he had to leave Cape Town, he said 'Curitiba'.
Merry Christmas to all of you, and spare a thought for the Pagans, from whom Christianity stole the idea. Smile
Helmar
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Helmar Rudolph helps companies succeed with their CRM-related business transformation process by utilising his unique "Diamond CRM" framework.
http://www.helmar.org
Graham Hill
Guru
Member
Posted 20-Dec-2005 05:46 AM
Helmar
I think it all comes down to "trust" at the end of the day.
If you trust your government to tax you fairly and to spend the money wisely in pusuit of common societal goals, then CRM may be appropriate as a personalised communications tool.
On the other hand, if you do not trust your government to do these things, particularly, to spend the money wisely and if you have no way to redress the situation, then CRM is probably not appropriate.
Unfortunately, a recent world-wide survey of which organisations people trust showed governments both amongst the least trusted of organisations and slipping further down the trust tables. Only big corporations were less trusted.
If you don't trust your government to tax spend your taxes wisely, why on earth would you trust what they say to you about how they spend them.
Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
PS. Julian LeGrand of the London School of Economics describes this trust dilemma well in his 2003 book, "Motivation, Agency and Public Policy: of knights and knaves, pawns and queens" published by Oxford University Press. Take a look at the LSE review of his book at http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOff..._AndPublicPolicy.htm
Helmar
Member
Posted 20-Dec-2005 06:47 AM
Graham,
I couldn't have said it any better. Well put! Isn't it somewhat fascinating to see what initiatives big corporations (and now some governments, too) take to portray them as more trusting? Yet the recipients see right through their dishonesty and disingenuity, and poof!!, all the effort, time and money down the drain!
I've said it before, but South Africa is a prime example of how a society decays after decades of government and corporate abuse. And even 11 years after the so-called democratic change, little if anything has changed, no matter how fancy their advertising campaigns.
If "it all comes down to "trust" at the end of the day", as you put it, then let's not forget that trust is the result of openness, honesty and respect. Without those, trust remains elusive, and with every bit of dishonest and disrespectful 'communication' (if one can call it such), the 'recipient' becomes more cynical, more negative and much more likely to 'return the favour'.
I think it's high time those in power (commercial and political) asked themselves what kind of society they want to create. They can, of course, carry on as if it's business as usual, in which case South Africa makes for a nice case study of how things will eventually turn out—and I tell you that it's not a pretty picture.
It's almost 2006, and I still have the feeling that most still don't 'get' what CRM really is and subsequently waste precious time and resources on something that will (can, in fact) never work under the current system. That said, I wonder if they actually care, but surely they can't be that dumb or thick, can they? It just never ceases to amaze me.
Helmar
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Helmar Rudolph helps companies succeed with their CRM-related business transformation process by utilising his unique "Diamond CRM" framework.
http://www.helmar.org