After decades of reporting in front of a television camera, investigative reporter Jesse Jones has transitioned to a new role inside state government.
Jones is Gov. Bob Fertuson’s pick to lead Your Washington, the latest evolution of the government accelerator program, formerly known as Results Washington.
Under Ferguson, and Jones, the unit has pivoted from a performance metrics driven effort to a customer service improvement hub.
For Jones, it’s a very different dynamic, but a familiar goal. His hotline at KIRO 7 generated tips which led to stories and sometimes to changes in law, like ticket bot restrictions.
The executive order that established Your Washington in September also instructed state agencies to send over summaries of their key services along with any data they hold about the customer service experience for taxpayers.
One of Jones’s early moves at Your Washington was reviewing the job satisfaction surveys of public facing staff.
“How do they like their jobs? Come to find out, they weren’t scoring very well,”said Jones to TVW’s The Impact. “You’re a customer and you’re angry and you’re calling somebody who’s just as upset at the state. All of a sudden they’re bonding on one thing. They both don’t like the state.”
However, Jones added, “a lot of those folks are really good at what they do, and they have the answers, and sometimes they’re not being listened to.”
The former reporter expected a lot of pushback from the agencies under his microscope, but says that’s not what he encountered.
“In fact, I would say more agencies are showing off what they’re doing than not and that has been really refreshing,” said Jones.
Much of the fine-tuning ahead will follow a review of the customer service data that agencies turn over.
“We want to know what they’re working on in terms of customer experience. How it worked. What do they believe are their key services, and how are those key services actually impacting customers?,” said Jones.
For now, Jones has a simple message for state agencies: “Do something you can do today to fix customer experience.”