Federal agencies looking for quick efficiency wins should start by driving more citizens to use existing digital service options. Coupling those efforts with awareness and outreach initiatives to promote self-service alternatives limits the need for high-touch human intervention, driving cost savings and freeing agency employees to focus on critical work.
Federal efficiency emerged as a central theme of the second Trump administration after the president signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with the goal of modernizing federal technology and maximizing efficiency.
While the push to modernize government systems isn’t new, the establishment of DOGE puts immediate pressure on operations and program leaders across the federal government to increase efficiency. Public sentiment is also putting pressure on agencies. When assessing government efficiency, a 2024 Pew Research Center report showed that 56% of Americans felt the government was “almost always wasteful and inefficient.” Quality digital services — with a communications strategy designed to build awareness and guide citizens through processes — builds trust while delivering necessary services at dramatically lower costs.
The objective: a self-sufficient citizenry
Each time a person walks into an organization’s office, it costs roughly $10 to address their issue. When someone picks up the phone to call, it costs $8 on average. Digital interactions, conversely, cost roughly $0.10 — a much more compelling return on investment.
The most critical measure of success for digital service delivery is that people become self-sufficient throughout the process. Online self-service portals and accessible web services that are easy for citizens to navigate and provide a positive user experience build trust with the public and make it easier for them to engage with the government wherever and whenever is convenient for them.
Online self-service can also drastically reduce labor and resources costs while removing operational burdens on citizens and employees. By streamlining communication through online information portals and digital notifications, citizens become self-sufficient, resulting in reduced call center volume, less paperwork, and fewer manual processes.
The catalyst: modernized digital outreach to drive self-service
When it comes to driving efficiency through digital-first service delivery, agencies should first evaluate how they are communicating information with the public and whether those efforts are effectively and efficiently pushing people to use digital services.
One of the fastest ways to increase efficiency and build trust with the public is for agencies to communicate timely information and facilitate interactions in the ways and places the public expects: online, in email inboxes, on mobile devices, and through social media.
Using modern digital communications to notify citizens of relevant online services creates awareness that fosters self-sufficiency and user adoption — people who aren’t aware of digital options will default to calling agencies or walking in to local offices. A digital communications strategy that is tailored to specific audience segments ensures people only receive relevant messages that speak to their needs and leads them to take the required action. Agencies can also automate these digital notifications to inform citizens of urgent updates, reminders, or status changes — saving money and time on manual communications touchpoints.
Automated, targeted messages and notifications guide citizens through the desired action, ensuring they get the information, services, or outcome they need the first time without resorting to costly call centers or in-person interactions. This allows agencies to simultaneously improve program adoption rates while reducing costs and driving efficiency.
Key considerations for agencies picking a partner for digital outreach
There are a few areas agencies should consider when evaluating digital outreach tools to help drive efficiency:
Implementing lightweight, proven technology
Currently, government spends 80% of its annual IT budget on operations and maintenance of existing IT investments, including many clunky, inflexible legacy systems. To drive cost savings, agencies should shift to leveraging modern, lightweight, cloud-based solutions to transition outdated processes from legacy technologies that cost agencies more than $100 billion per year to maintain. Reallocating budget for modern, low-cost digital outreach solutions can directly improve program success while reducing costs and driving efficiency.
Leveraging AI and data insights to optimize outreach
Using advanced AI capabilities and data analytics to better understand and segment audiences is critical to accelerating the impact of digital outreach and ultimately driving cost savings.
Agencies should seek to facilitate responsible data collection and synchronization as well as sharing of data and insights between agencies and programs to better understand their constituents and optimize digital outreach and service delivery. Granicus enhances this capability by providing access to an unmatched aggregation of public sector data drawn from more than 30 billion digital interactions each year and a built-in base of 360 million opt-in subscribers to government information.
Agencies that work with Granicus are able to combine their own data with insights from Granicus to build audience profiles for highly cost-effective, targeted outreach campaigns, guiding those audiences to the intended result faster, more efficiently, and at a much lower cost.
Measuring performance and minimizing program waste, fraud and risk
Becoming more data-driven has been a bipartisan focus at the executive level across several administrations because it leads to better decision-making and transparency. Using a digital system to manage communications and service delivery enables agencies to build trust and drive efficiency by using enterprise data and insights to measure citizen engagement and benchmark progress. Consistent, high-quality data allows agencies to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars by providing real-time insights for better decisions, leading to fewer mistakes, less waste, and more efficiency. Granicus helps agencies minimize program waste and detect and reduce fraud utilizing AI/ML and data from billions of digital interactions.
Granicus’ advanced digital outreach tools help agencies eliminate the risk of citizens not accessing, complying with, nor completing digital service journeys due to over-reliance on slow, paper-based processes that cannot be iterated quickly or measured for effectiveness. Instead, digital journeys are delivered for cents on the dollar with extremely high completion and satisfaction rates.
Agencies also value the Granicus platform for enhancing transparency, automating oversight, and creating digital rules that detect fraudulent activity in real time without relying on costly look-back audits that are unable to prevent fraud activity at the time of occurrence.
Simplify security and compliance
Secure delivery and protection of sensitive data are requirements for any federal program — how you meet those mandates makes all the difference. When considering services and vendors, agencies should look for providers that have been authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), the first governmentwide security authorization program. Working with a provider that offers a secure environment and can withstand comprehensive and rigorous review of FedRAMP’s Joint Authorization Board (JAB) cuts down on the lengthy Authority to Operate process and ensures message delivery complies with ever-changing security regulations.
Leaning on the right partner to drive efficiency
Agencies need a partner with a proven record of helping government accelerate the shift toward digital-first service delivery to improve citizen satisfaction while reducing costs and ensuring security.
Trusted by more than 6,500 federal, state, and local government agencies, Granicus is the leading provider of government solutions for more efficient and effective program delivery, driven by digital and AI-powered technologies and deep public sector expertise that help federal agencies reach more people and deliver vital services with lower overall costs and fewer staff resources.
To get started driving government efficiency and program adoption with Granicus, reach out here, or contact your Granicus customer success manager to get more out of your current services.
