IN THEORY, it could actually be said that other government functions such as market research and database management could already be outsourced. Hopefully, government agencies would eventually be able to compare the costs if they are confronted with the options to in-source or outsource.
The theory behind outsourcing is that the services provided by the contractors should be cheaper and better, two concepts that could be interpreted as either being efficient or effective, as the case may be.
What that means is that the government would actually end up as the winner, because the delivery of services would cost lesser, and the quality would be higher.
Generally speaking, it could be said that the quality of in-sourcing would be lower, because the agencies that would provide the services would not have a profit motive.
Conversely, the outsourcing providers are driven by profit motives.
A good example of this would be jail management, wherein the private sector could probably provide services that are not only cheaper, but are also more secure, aside from having more nutritious food. Ideally, the scope of jail management should also include rehabilitation, the real purpose of being jailed.
Although I said that CRM is a science, the real science behind it now is Information and Communications Technology (ICT), now usually in the form of websites or mobile apps.
As it is happening now, many mobile apps have website versions, and vice versa. Regardless of what form it takes, ICT software should be well designed in terms of “User Interface” (UI) and “User Experience” (UX), with the goal in mind of having the best CRM by having the best customer engagement.
Yes, customer engagement is really the name of the game, and the object of the game is customer satisfaction. Although it may sound like I am going around in circles, I am actually going direct to my point, and my point is that government agencies, just like private corporations, should now adopt CRM software with superior UI and UX built into it, for the sake of the highest customer satisfaction.
It is not true that a career government employee could never be removed from office for whatever reason. The truth is that he or she could only be removed if there is a reasonable cause, and if there is due process.
As it is now, most government agencies are already implementing their own performance rating standards. While that may be a good start, the next step should be to correlate individual scores with the collective customer satisfaction ratings.
If the ratings are low, it would imply that the customers (read as citizens) are not happy with the services provided.
Somehow, some ways, the Filipino people would ultimately realize that they have the power not only as citizens and customers to rate the services of government agencies, they also have the power to dictate their fund sources as taxpayers and voters, at least in theory./PN
