Delivering Australian Government Services: Access and Distribution Strategy
Channel Management Strategy
Australian Government agencies deliver a wide range of services to a diverse range of customers across numerous channels. The use of multiple channels – such as shop fronts, call centres and the internet – is commonplace in both government and industry service delivery environments.
The guide, Managing Multiple Channels (released with this strategy), has been developed to provide agencies with insight and guidance into the strategic considerations for developing a robust channel strategy. The document also provides guidance for aligning customer needs, services, outcomes and channel mix.
Government agencies continue to add new channels – such as short messaging service (SMS), interactive voice response (IVR) and speech recognition options – to their channel portfolios in order to provide customers with a wider variety of ways to engage with government. Breakthrough opportunities for the next phase of e-government reside with the opportunities offered through agency collaboration to – target channel choices, rationalise existing ‘siloed’ agency-centric channels, and reduce duplication in both infrastructure and administration.
A channel strategy can assist agencies to manage multiple-channel delivery in their constantly changing environment. Policy developers and implementation planners rely on agency channel management strategies to better inform policy and implementation decision-making.
A channel strategy can illustrate the best method to engage customers, the type of engagement best supported by each channel and the way channels interact with each other. A channel strategy should focus on ensuring the following:
- Information and experience consistency – although customers may want to continue to use a variety of channels, they expect consistency in their experiences when interacting with the government, no matter what channel they use
- Cross-channel insight – customers expect each channel to be attuned to recent interactions and transactions that were initiated through alternate channels
The benefits of a channel strategy include:
- the alignment of customer needs, services, channels and agency priorities
- improved cost efficiency of service delivery across multiple channels
- seamless, integrated and consistent delivery of services across channels
- informed and prudent future channel investments
- achievement of government policy outcomes
Contact for information on this page: nsip@finance.gov.au