Shifting to a customer-centric approach has enabled FEMA to streamline the registration Intake process, innovating the entire process to deliver survivors assistance better and faster than before. This innovation is the most significant update to survivor assistance in the last 20 years to reach more survivors and deliver assistance faster. Applicants are now provided with a simple, tailored, plain language experience with easy navigation, visual progress tracking and individualized information collection. For example, more specific question development has already reduced the registration time by more than 15%. FEMA developed these new forms of assistance based on direct feedback from survivors, and in response to ever increasing need to deliver equitable assistance to disaster survivors. This change has enabled FEMA to reach the right communities by increasing accessibility and eligibility for post-disaster support.

While FEMA has been collecting feedback for decades from disaster survivors, communities, and stakeholders on how to improve the Individual Assistance program, the real change to DisasterAssistance.gov began Oct. 30, 2023. The team is using a phased implementation approach with an initial 2% of applicants directed to the new registration intake process, with a planned increase to 100% over the subsequent months. Early insights are already providing direction for planning in 2024. In 2024, FEMA has committed to:
-Amending Individual Assistance regulations to increase equitable access;
-Implementing recommendations from a Claims Journey Map; and
-Collecting baseline customer service information from insurance companies.

FEMA has been collecting feedback for decades from disaster survivors, communities and stakeholders, including the public on how to specifically improve the Individual Assistance program. State partners and members of Congress have equally been engaged and key partners. In December 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 14058 on Transforming Federal Customer, creating specific agency commitments to improving services and providing FEMA the momentum to improve disaster relief.

Key stakeholders include disaster survivors, local communities and stakeholders, service providers, the public, state governments, and members of congress. All of these stakeholders were integral in identifying problems and proposed solutions which require coordination across varying stakeholders. Improving diasterassistance.gov would not have been possible without stakeholder engagement.

New updates to the reimagined DisasterAssistance.gov website have made applying for disaster assistance faster than ever by improving customer experience and reducing burden on the applicant. For example, for most disaster survivors, the changes to the website are expected to reduce the registration time by more than 15%. The updates are also expected to help ensure disaster assistance is more equitably distributed, as well as to assist applicants to more quickly and fully recover from disasters by supporting access to assistance.

The updates to DisasterAssistance.gov may result in an increase in transfer payments from FEMA and States in the form of disaster assistance to individuals and households. The DisasterAssistance.gov innovation faced the reality that making assistance support easier to access can make it easier for fraudulent claims to be made. While this concern is one the teams take seriously, FEMA is continually learning and finding ways to identify fraud early and to prevent it, balancing ease of access with fraud prevention.

A combination of leadership, policy, and funding enabled the opportunity for the improvements made to disasterassistance.gov. This includes the Executive order signed by the President on Customer Experience, coordination from the White House, and engaged leadership at the Department of Homeland Security. Further, user feedback was integral and necessary to build the roadmap to success and ensure the efforts made would indeed improve the user experience.

The concept of customer experience has been a key priority of the current Administration and has been integrated into the 38 High Impact Service Providers (HISP) to raise the standard of government service delivery. Annually, HISP teams conduct comprehensive assessments of their high-impact services, measure their customer experience maturity, and identify actions to improve service delivery. They also interact with each other through communities of practice.

The team behind DisasterAssistance.gov, while nascent in their transformation initiative, have already learned how important it is to have the right stakeholders, users, and support to make a change happen. Some specific lessons learned are:
-The importance of listening to those involved at every step of the process,
-The importance of mapping out the user experience,
Connecting with the right stakeholders,
-Working with risk assessment experts,
-Ensuring diverse stakeholders are a part of the conversation to uncover additional solutions.