ŠAVŠ/TAČR Digital Czechia in a Digital Europe

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What to avoid and what to focus on more in the future A very commonmistake in digitalization of public administration and services is the excessive degree of concentration on individual points of communication between the citizen and the authorities, instead of focusing on the digitalization of the whole process. The digitalization of a specific service must mean that the whole process from start to finish is digitalized from the end user’s point of view and fully accessible through an online interface. User satisfaction with digitalized public administration and services decreases significantly when the user is forced to communicate with the authorities by telephone or be physically present at any point in the whole process. 25 The Czech Republic, and especially its public administration, should ensure and pay attention to the fact that the services it will begin to offer in digitalized form can be handled from start to finish without any need for further communication with the authorities. In addition, the Sopra steria study, which focused mainly on UK digitalization processes, identified three areas where users of digitalized public services complained about the most. The most frustrating (in 40% of all responses) was the need to fill in the same information twice or more times. The second most common complaint (35%) related to the complexity of the services provided – according to some users, the systems were not intuitive and user-friendly. In third place (24%) were grievances concerning the relative difficulty in finding the right website or link so that they could start processing their request. 26 Athough the Czech Republic does not yet have similar data available, it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that the information obtained has considerable validity in our context as well. Therefore, the Czech Republic should already (1) avoid unnecessary duplication when filling in basic data, (2) creates digitalized services that are user-friendly and (3) easily directs users to the right websites. While the Czech Republic still needs to catch up with its European counterparts in digitalization of public administration and services in many respects (whether in terms of the number of people using the services or the quantity and quality of services offered), it should not focus solely and exclusively on compensating for the current differences but should also factor in the development that digitalization will continue to take. 25 Baig Aamer, Dua Andre, Riefberg Vivian, Putting citizens first: How to improve citizens’ experience and satisfaction with government services, McKinsey Center for Government, 2014, https:// www. mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/public%20sector/our%20insights/how%20us%20 state%20governments%20can%20improve%20customer%20service/putting%20citizens%20 first%20how%20to%20improve%20citizens%20experience%20and%20satisfaction%20with%20 government%20services.ashx. 26 The Citizen View of Government Digital Transformation 2017 Findings, Sopra Steria.