Long waits on hold, forms that seem to ask the same question twice, and paperwork that never quite ends are familiar frustrations for anyone dealing with public services. The UK government now says it’s finally ready to tackle them, and that borrowing ideas from private sector customer experience could make the difference this time.
The launch of CustomerFirst, a new unit within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), is designed to modernize government services and improve how millions of people interact with the state. By drawing on outside expertise, and modern technology like AI, the initiative aims to make public services feel faster and less painful.
CustomerFirst will be led by Tristan Thomas, who was previously VP for Marketing, Comms, and Policy at digital bank Monzo, with Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of utility Octopus Energy, appointed as its first co-chair. The unit brings together civil servants and industry specialists to test new approaches to fixing delays and frustrations, and then, in theory, roll out whatever works across government.
A central idea is that public services can learn directly from sectors like banking, e-commerce and utilities. At Octopus Energy, for example, GenAI already helps service agents draft 35 percent of customer emails, cutting wait times and contributing to the utility’s 70 percent customer satisfaction scores. CustomerFirst will explore whether similar tools can be applied in public services, where promises to reduce delays and eliminate repetitive processes have been made before.
The government says the benefits will extend beyond citizens. The new unit is also focused on giving frontline staff better tools, making it easier for them to resolve issues without bouncing people between departments or systems.
Over time, this approach could also generate major savings for taxpayers, with estimates suggesting up to £4BN could be saved by shifting more service processing online rather than by phone, post or in person. That is a figure likely to attract scrutiny given the mixed track record of large-scale IT reform in the public sector.
Minister for Digital Government Ian Murray framed the launch as a cultural shift in how the state serves the public:
“Too often people are put off from interacting with the services they need by the frustration that comes with waiting on hold, filling in endless forms, and jumping through hoop after hoop.”
“A culture of ‘computer says no’ is not good enough, and this Roadmap sets out the wide range of brilliant work happening across government to improve public services and citizens’ interaction with them.”
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will be the first organization to work with CustomerFirst. The agency handles millions of interactions each year around licences, vehicle registration and motoring services, making it an early test case for deploying technology on the frontline of public sector customer service.
It’s also an obvious starting point given that the agency has faced repeated criticism over delays and backlogs, and its “antiquated” operations were the subject of a Public Accounts Committee inquiry in 2023.
The changes made at the DVLA are expected to serve as a blueprint for other departments, assuming they deliver the improvements being promised.
The launch of CustomerFirst sits within the government’s broader Roadmap for a Modern Digital Government published over the weekend, which outlines plans to digitize everything from the planning system to benefits and tax services, centered on a “seamless user experience”.
But ministers stressed that telephone and face-to-face options will remain available for people who need them, including older users and those less confident online, a familiar reassurance as more services move onto apps and portals.
With expressions of interest now open for senior experts in service design, solutions architecture and product management, CustomerFirst indicates that the government is looking beyond traditional approaches for ideas on how technology can finally deliver a better customer experience at scale.
With expressions of interest now open for senior roles in service design, solutions architecture and product management, CustomerFirst signals that the government is again looking beyond traditional approaches for answers to long-standing service problems.
It remains to be seen whether this latest attempt will lead to lasting change and finally deliver a better customer experience across government agencies, or join a long list of digital reform efforts that struggled to scale.
Governments Look to Private Sector CX Playbooks
The UK is not alone in trying to rethink how citizens interact with the state. Governments in various countries have been borrowing ideas from private sector customer experience to simplify services and reduce friction.
Canada, Singapore and several European countries have also set up dedicated digital and service design teams tasked with improving end-to-end journeys.
Estonia is often held up as setting the standard, with a digital identity system that gives citizens access to hundreds of public services online. Ukraine’s Diia platform has taken a mobile-first approach, offering services such as digital driving licences and tax tools through a single app. In Australia, Service NSW and MyGov have centralized access to services while placing heavy emphasis on usability and feedback.
CustomerFirst suggests the UK government wants to push in that direction, leaning more heavily on private sector thinking and technology. The harder part, as past initiatives have shown, will be turning those ideas into improvements people actually notice when they pick up the phone—or try not to.
