Siebel aligns solutions with government needs

Customer satisfaction in the commercial market has improved steadily over the past five years, but the same can't be said of satisfaction with government agencies, the head of Siebel Systems Inc. said today.

Speaking at the FOSE 2004 trade show in Washington, Chief Executive Officer Tom Siebel said the same principals that businesses apply to customer relationship management could be used by agencies for citizen relationship management.

"The public sector is in the customer service business," Siebel told the audience. "[Agencies] have services to provide, and they have constituents to provide the services to. ? There may not be a profit motive, but the customer satisfaction objective remains the same."

The fundamental problem that spans nearly all government functions, Siebel said, is that agencies "have no consistent view of their customers." Back-end systems are not integrated, and agency employees have difficulty accessing information.

The Siebel Public Sector suite includes six highly tailored solutions, Siebel said. The solutions focus on 311 citizen response centers, immigration services, benefits case management for human services, revenue management, providing a single view of the taxpayer, and defense personnel and logistics management.

Siebel detailed how several of these solutions have been deployed in government agencies. New York City's 311 call center is using Siebel solutions to consolidate services and improve service; the South African Revenue Service uses Siebel to integrate 12 legacy systems and improve tax collection; and the Defense Department has approximately 1,000 users on Siebel software tracking logistics.

"Performance-driven government is a tremendous win for both governments and citizens," Siebel said in a statement prior to his address. "This represents a fundamental shift away from inefficient, expensive, agency-centered service toward mission-focused processes that address citizen needs efficiently and effectively, delivering the highest return on government and taxpayer investments."

FOSE is produced by PostNewsweek Tech Media, parent of Washington Technology.