Here are several additional areas of potential interest to vendors from the Strike Team’s Detailed Assessment and Recommendations, released at the same time as a shorter version:
• EDD is partnering with vendor Nava PBC on a claim status feature aimed at addressing a “top reason” residents contact the department, the report’s authors wrote. The state Office of Digital Innovation (ODI) conducted a three-day pilot from July 27-29, adding Google Analytics to track how often residents click the “Help” icon when using Unemployment Insurance Online (UIO). During that time, officials documented 338,753 “help button clicks,” of which 77,750 were visitors attempting to understand their claim status — identified by report authors as “a top reason for contacting EDD.”
“Neither the claimants nor the call center operators understand the status of claims, which leads to a growing number of confused and dissatisfied customers further straining the system,” authors wrote, documenting 399,722 “pending electronic messages from claimants” identified as “Filed a Claim - No response” and 211,876 messages identified as “Where’s my payment?” as of Aug. 29. At least 20 percent of chatbot requests were related to claim status as of July. A claim status of “pending” is too broad, the authors wrote, recommending officials “scope and implement a solution to meet the needs of claimants in knowing their status.”
• Authors recommended EDD work with ODI to replace the UIO application template with a “mobile responsive” version during the next 30 days — and turn off the existing app when officials launch the mobile responsive template. The reasoning here: the UIO website doesn’t work on mobile phones. ODI’s research revealed 39 percent of users in June “were using mobile devices to file a new claim” via UIO. EDD’s “regular website” draws nearly 70 percent of incoming users via mobile; and it’s thought the introduction of document upload will further drive mobile use. ODI “has already written code” to make the UIO form work on mobile phones “but was told the level of effort from Deloitte to implement it would exceed eight months.”
“While we appreciate the fragility of the UI Online website code, we find this estimate to be unacceptable and inaccurate,” the authors wrote, indicating a separate “UIO Mobile” app exists “with extremely limited functionality,” which returns users to the desktop site for most sites. The desktop site doesn’t work on mobile.
• EDD needs “incident command meetings” to work off its claims backlog “in a data-driven manner,” per the report — but it should also have “a regular cadence of data-driven improvements to the claimant experience.” An improved experience could have “prevented significant churn” during the COVID-19 pandemic by getting out in front of confusing questions around certification and making “plain language claim status readily available.”
“Regularly working to improve the claimant experience will position EDD that much more effectively in the next surge in unemployment claims,” the authors wrote, by “reducing incoming calls, claimant mistakes and earning public trust.” Drivers of claimants’ experience include Google Analytics events on UIO; the percentage of initial claims received via paper or telephone; messages from potential claimants; call center selections; and usability and accessibility testing results.
• Report authors recommended officials consider “shifting to an external mail/scanning vendor who would be paid by volume,” as a way to automate a key process and centralize it so the needs to measure and scale capacity both reside in one place. “In the current pandemic, it was possible to hire hundreds of call agents but not the 40 additional employees needed to open and scan mail,” the authors wrote, recommending officials work with the California Department of Human Resources to have a “rapid staffing expansion plan” permanently in place for EDD’s centralized document processing center.
• Authors recommended assigning a full-time product owner — a “single individual at EDD” responsible for reviewing data regularly, more often than weekly meetings; “intimately understanding” claimants’ experiences including “all underlying data systems and data structures”; weighing and prioritizing improvements and coordinating them with leadership; monitoring what other states are doing in this area and advocating for policy change as needed. “This person cannot have another job at EDD; they must be the product owner full-time,” authors wrote.
