Latest sludge guides set to boost customer engagement
Get ready to improve customer engagement with the tips and tricks in BIU’s sludge guides. Launched at this year’s Sludge-a-thon, the guides provide evidence-based techniques for improving interactions between government and customers by cutting sludge.
The challenge
Sludge is a key challenge for NSW customers. Confusing forms, missing or inaccessible information and inconsistent eligibility criteria are all forms of sludge. This sludge makes it hard for customers to engage and transact with the NSW government.
The NSW Government sludge audit provides a consistent and reliable way to identify and quantify sludge in customer services and prioritise what to tackle first. But this is only half the challenge. It is one thing to find the sludge in a process and another to fix it.
That is where the sludge guides come in to play.
What we did
The sludge guides provide information about key channels which public servants use to interact with customers - letters and emails, websites, forms, phone and face to face, text messages and apps.
Each guide includes:
Evidence based tips and techniques for improving the customer experience and busting sludge in each channel type – all informed by the latest research in behavioural science, customer experience, and human centered design.
Examples and case studies on how these techniques have been used successfully around the world, and how they can be applied to common government channels.
A checklist for best practice on improving processes in a behaviourally informed way.
What is next?
The BIU is working on more sludge busting resources for NSW Public Servants including templates to help you complete a sludge audit, so keep an eye out for them.
Accessing the guides
Download our sludge resources on our guides page.