DHS Touts Customer Service Improvements, Saves “20 Million Hours”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) interacts more frequently with the American public than any federal agency or department. Now DHS is touting an improved customer service experience, achieving a goal set by DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas of building a more “equitable and accessible” customer experience.
DHS says it reduced the total amount of time the public spends accessing DHS services by 20 million hours annually, largely by simplifying services used by the public.
“Improving the customer experience is one of the Department's top priorities. Through the tremendous talent and dedication of our personnel, we have made great strides in doing so,” said Secretary Mayorkas.
In order to improve customer service, Secretary Mayorkas established the DHS Burden Reduction Initiative (BRI) after President Biden issued his Executive Order on “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government.”
The BRI focused on removing barriers, increasing equity, building trust, and enhancing security.
DHS says it made progress by making the online paperwork process much simpler, including the use of automatic renewals and short forms, enabling more forms to be submitted online, and pre-populating forms and reusing data when applicable.
The agency highlighted several examples of improved customer service:
· Improving the credentialing process for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees by enabling online renewals and reducing renewal fees, allowing TSA employees to spend less time on paperwork.
· Saving users of the National Fire Incident Reporting System, a database for fire departments to report activities, more than 2.8 million total hours by using type-ahead features and replacing legacy software with online form submissions.
· Saving time on ocean vessel cargo transport by allowing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to use pre-populated data and reuse existing data from trade customers. DHS says it cut submission times to five minutes, from up to three hours.
· Improving the experience for visiting students by allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pre-fill fields, share data between related collections, and build responsive, mobile-friendly experiences.
DHS notes that it is not done in its customer service makeover and will “continue to take proactive steps to ensure the public can efficiently access the services and programs it offers” through policy and regulatory changes and an improved digital experience. DHS also highlights that it’s hiring for customer service positions.
“There is much more work to be done. We will continue to find new ways to modernize services and harness technology to improve efficiency, equity, and accessibility in everything that we do,” said Secretary Mayorkas.