Customer-Centricity in the Social Sector

Imagine this: You’re a single mother of two, working multiple jobs and struggling to make ends meet.

You have come to terms that you need support, but where do you go? You are unsure of your eligibility for different social services and feel overwhelmed while navigating the intricacies of assistance for each of your needs—from food insecurity, to housing, to employment, to health care.

Today, this is not an easy process.

Members of our community in need may struggle with keeping a sense of dignity and belonging as they share repeat vulnerability with each new organization.

What would it feel like to seek help over and over again? Would you even start? The barriers in the life of a person who is experiencing hardship are already immense, but the added challenge of navigating a complex and inefficient web of social service systems can be crippling. If our purpose is to uplift and stabilize these individuals so they can quickly become self-sufficient and contribute additionally to our community, social services must be approachable and human-centered.

Creating an Experience of Empowerment, Choice, and Convenience

Most service agencies and their operations tend to work in a silo, under their own distinct systems which are fragmented from other providers. The understanding of what a person and their family needs is decentralized, often existing only within the individual agency for that one service provided. If the data exists at all, it is not easily shareable and thus no single provider has a complete picture. This makes it hard to assess the needs of the whole person, where they are already getting help, and how agencies can make the biggest impact on their experiences.

What if social services, rather than feeling siloed, could wrap around a person and put their holistic needs at the center?

How does this vision and transparency enable agencies to guide and serve their customers more intentionally like businesses serve the modern consumer?

We believe the future of social services is an experience of empowerment, choice and convenience—one where different organizations coordinate and share their collective data to meet people’s needs end-to-end. The future is predictive, where rather than the customer experiencing friction from seeking help, that help is proactively presented to them and curated to their unique needs. That means if you are homeless, you don’t have to learn how to navigate each and every system, and there is no wrong place to start your journey.

Regardless of the individual’s first touchpoint, that person will be guided to resources where all their needs are met starting with just one interaction.

If we can imagine a future for social services like today’s on-demand economy, customers will one day be able to access support services as seamlessly and immediately as using Netflix, Teladoc or Doordash.

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Change Is Already Happening

In Columbus, this shift is already underway. There are multiple forward-facing organizations in our own community who are working to build this vision—Mid-Ohio Food Collective, Smart Columbus and Columbus State Community College are among them—but there is more work to be done.

We call on nonprofit board members and community leaders to prioritize a culture of customer centricity

—to reimagine what their customer’s ideal experience could look like, and how collaborating with other agencies to understand the whole person across sectors will help bring this vision to life. We have to start by seeking to understand the complexities of the human experience, sharing our data and customer research with our peers, and congregating to solve these hairy human challenges together.

What Can You Do?

• Take a virtual, human-centered design course and enhance your empathy skills: IDEO U
• Get involved in Can’t Stop Columbus’ human-centered design sprints: Volunteer Form
• If you serve on a nonprofit board or work within a social services organization, revisit your strategy to ensure it is human-centered and you are advocating for investments in data and research.

Human-Centered Design for Nonprofits: Who Thrives Here Today?

Social services are uniquely positioned to improve the human condition, finding increased efficacy when leveraging data and a customer-centric mindset to meet the needs of their communities. In my work developing ZoCo, an experience design agency, I’ve found nonprofits who use data to understand the people they serve often come to more innovative solutions. It starts with looking outside of your own perspectives and assumptions.

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