USDA | OCX
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) supports agriculture, food safety, natural resources, and rural development. Its Rural Development division enhances rural communities through financial assistance for housing, infrastructure, and business growth. Based on the Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government, the Office of Customer Experience (OCX) is responsible for empowering, enabling, and engaging USDA customers and employees with a human-centered approach to innovation to deliver consistently exceptional service to customers.
What was achieved…
Working with the federal government, I led a team of over 10 Experience Designers on a mission to transform the customer experience and service design with the USDA rural development. Our journey began with extensive research to understand the agency's challenges and opportunities. I worked directly with the Chief Customer Experience Officer of OCX, as well as the Deputy Chief Customer Experience Officer of OCX.
Through close collaboration with stakeholders, we identified Rural Development as the area where our efforts would have the greatest impact. Guided by data and user insights, we dove deep into quantitative and qualitative research, uncovering key pain points and opportunities for improvement across the country. We interviewed over 60 customers across the country, reviewed over 40 internal documents, conducted over 25 internal interviews, and determined that mortgage management and processing experience the greatest challenges.
As a result, we created a series of detailed customer journey maps, innovative prototypes, and more than 60 tailored recommendations designed to enhance service delivery and create meaningful change for USDA customers.