Why is it so hard for government agencies to identify and define their customer?
Comments by attendees at three recent national conferences, here and abroad, confirm that government reengineers are no closer to simplifying the issue. A sense of frustration permeates project after project as the complexity of serving far too many masters prevents simple contraction of government processes. There is a wide body of opinion on this topic. Frankly, confusion appears to reign among government project teams, as they try to map existing processes and produce redesigned processes capable of effectively meeting the conflicting needs of a bevy of customer groups. This confusion has slowed government reengineering to a snail’s pace. It seems so simple! Government only has one customer — the taxpayer. The person who pays for the government service is always the customer. In many cases, the taxpayer/customer values a government service’s contribution to our society sufficiently to pay for the service on behalf of another individual. This may be the user, the student, the patron
