Why Identity is the I in… High Impact Service Providers

Here's the third blog in our seriesdetailing how focusing on Identity can help your organization improve end-user experiences and meet consumer expectations.

On its third anniversary, we look back at the Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience (CX) and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government, which highlights the U.S. government's recommitment to delivering the highest standards of digital excellence. While all U.S. executive branch departments and agencies have a responsibility to manage CX and improve service delivery, High Impact Service Providers (HISPs) are required to implement the guidance set forth in the executive order, in addition to a range of other CX actions by the Biden Administration from 2021-2023.

HISPsare U.S. Federal entities designated by the Office of Management and Budget that provide or fund high-impact, customer-facing services, including federal services administered at the state or local level. I like to categorize these programs as the agencies that often come to mind if someone asks you to name a government agency, which would be a fair starting point given the HISP selection criteria: If there's a high percentage of the population served, a high volume of annual transactions produced, and a consequential impact on the livelihood of an individual group.

In feedback we trust

Currently, there are 38 HISPs, 27 of which have reported customer feedback data. The quarterly, post-transaction data measures how individual interactions with services drive trust in government. HISP reporting also helps foster best practices and cross-agency benchmarking for reducing the burden on the public. For example, customers of major government services are askedif an interaction took a reasonable amount of time; this is an example of efficiency making the difference in an experience being good or bad.

Saving an individual's time also includes the U.S. federal workforce. Effectively reducing administrative burdens can also simplify internal processes, empowering public servants to solve problems with human-centered solutions, which means less patchwork. If you're wondering if you're imposing unintentional time taxes on your employees, start with assessing their first encounter of the day: logging in.

Modern Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)enables passwordless login experiences that significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access. It also enables your agency to securely use your applications of choice, including over 35 mission-critical CX toolslike ServiceNow, Salesforce, Acquia, Qualtrics, Adobe, Granius, and Zoom.

These ready-to-configure integrationsreduce operational burdens by automatically provisioning access for the right stakeholders at the right time. Okta Workflows, our FedRAMP High Authorized low- to-no code solution, also enables the integrations to draw smart connections between customer relationship management and voice of customer tools, for example, to automate customer lifecycle events. Additionally, with Okta Workflows, those same stakeholders can receive automated notifications or alerts from common apps like Microsoft Teams or Slack when an individual completes a survey. They can also aggregate data across multiple agencies and levels of government to prioritize service improvements for the American public.

Customers galore

When you think of who an HISP interacts with, the first thing you may think of are U.S. citizens or the American public. However, HISPs have the responsibility to serve, engage, and partner with a much larger network of stakeholders.

When asked "Who are your customers?" during a recent Federal News Network panel, HISPs in 2025: The State of Federal CX, federal CX leaders shed light on the diverse stakeholders reliant on their public-facing services. Take the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Vessel Entrance and Clearance Systemas an example. Their community includes commercial and government entities - from CBP officers who conduct on-vessel law enforcement activities and sometimes process VEC forms to ships' captains and crews who must document and declare everything on board. These government-to-business and government-to-government business models require a Customer Identity infrastructure that fights fragmentation, integrating across an organization's wider technology stack andwider user base to establish a single, authoritative record of each customer's identity. By doing so, a CIAM platform enables convenient, private, and secure customer experiences while contributing to compliance and serving as the foundation of customer-centric analytics.

Interested in taking a closer look at how HISPs are setting a new standard for U.S. public-sector service delivery? Check out the Federal News Network learning series, sponsored by Carahsoft, to hear more from Okta and federal leaders in the U.S. Agriculture Department, U.S. General Services Administration, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, and the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department.

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