Time for a Government CX Reboot
Voters said life feels harder.
And last week they took that frustration to the ballot box and demanded a change.
This aligns with the current research as satisfaction with federal government services fell 2.6% in 2026 to a score of 68.6 out of 100.
Everything we are discussing here has nothing to do with politics or party - it is about leadership and service.
Citizens want to feel as though they are heard and understood.
Frustration is often the cause for customers to fire a company, but the only recourse citizens have is the ballot box every two years.
The indicators are there and have been for some time. Trust in the federal government is at its lowest in Gallup's records - but local government remains the most trusted government institution.
The frustration with affordability and feeling heard reached an all time high and no one listened, so change came via the ballot box.
It is normal for the party in power to lose in the midterms but this was an even more significant change than normal. It's easy to think about this in terms of parties or politics, but I challenge you to look past that and think about citizen service and hospitality.
Voters didn't nudge the balance of power this month, they turned it on its head. Control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives will change hands next year, along with a significant share of the nation's governorships.
The Senate: Seven seats switched, enough to change the majority. Several came from places where voters hadn't made that kind of switch in a generation or longer, including Kansas, which had not made that choice in nearly a century, and South Carolina, where it hadn't happened in 28 years.
The House: More than 40 seats switched as I write this, 43 one way and 2 the other. Some came from districts that had voted the opposite direction by double digits just two years earlier.
The Governors: Five governorships changed hands, enough to shift the majority of the nation's governorships for the first time in 16 years.
The Turnout: Early voting set a record for a midterm, and preliminary estimates put overall turnout among the highest for a midterm in more than a century.
What made this election stand out wasn't who won - It was how far voters were willing to swing, including in places that were normally fairly consistent. But the message was clear: something has to change.
In a hospitality business, an unhappy guest has options. They can complain, leave a review, or take their business down the street. Citizens don't have that last option, so every two years, they can decide to fire the management.
Book Tony today to speak at your event or workshop. He is available for keynotes and training sessions on hospitality, employee experience, or leadership development. He can also lead your strategy planning sessions to drive change + results in your business.
So What?
Customers in any other business can make a change fairly easily with their feet and their wallets. But citizens can't choose a different DMV, switch to another Social Security Administration, or contact a competing business, so their frustration builds.
Then they take advantage of the only exit available - the elections that occur every two years. And it mostly comes down to trust.
Local government remains the most trusted government institution, while trust in the federal government sits at the lowest point in Gallup's records. The difference isn't the size of the institution. It's the distance between the people making decisions and the people living with them. When residents can see who is serving them and feel that someone is paying attention, trust holds.
When trust erodes, so does the relationship - customers (or in this case citizens) don't feel that connection and sense of belonging, so they seek change.
Accidental experiences and feeling as though no one is listening isn't good in any business and, as we are seeing, it is especially bad for politicians.
Let’s Talk About What’s Next
It is important to note that everything we are discussing here has nothing to do with politics or party - it is about leadership and service. Hospitality isn't limited to restaurants, hotels, and theme parks - it lives anywhere that service happens. Government is no exception.
Listen + Understand Residents
Every great hospitality experience starts with knowing who is walking through the door and what they're carrying with them. Residents rarely contact government because they want to or because everything is going well - they call because they need something or there is a problem. Government is complicated and often interacting with it is difficult to understand. Right now citizens feel that their financial situation is getting worse and that no one in government is listening. So start by making sure people feel heard and understood. That means listening at every point of contact, reading the comments + feedback, and walking the journey yourself to really get a feel for their frustrations.
Design For People
Most public-sector friction comes from processes built around the rulebook instead of the resident. The fix starts by mapping the touchpoints that residents actually experience, like the phone call, the counter, the online form, and the follow-up. Then ask: What does this feel like for the person on the other side? Policies, rules, and procedures have their place, so long as they make sense and don't make things hard on purpose. It all starts by designing around the people who use your services and making sure that where you meet people is designed to be of service to them, not a hassle.
Equip the Team
How you treat your team is exactly how your customers will get treated, and that holds just as true at a government office as it does at a hotel front desk. Staffing pressures have been corelated with the reduced satisfaction with government services. When the front line is stretched, leaders have to protect it by training people well, giving them the tools to solve problems, and making sure they know their work matters. This makes communication, recognition, and training just as important as in any other industry.
Empower the Team
Strategies, mandates, and even laws mean nothing until they show up in the moment a resident is being served. That gap between intention and action is where most service efforts die, because a checklist never served a guest. Closing it takes daily rituals like pre-shift huddles, real-time coaching, and leaders who are visible on the floor. This is something retail and hospitality does very well that government an learn from. An empowered team not only connects these dots, but also has the authority from leadership to solve problems and take action.
Measure and Adapt
Hospitality is never finished, because people and expectations evolve and change over time. Government often measures activity, like calls handled or forms processed, instead of what residents actually experience (or whether the problem was actually solved), and it tends to review the numbers less frequently than it should. The best leaders measure what people feel, such as wait times, abandoned calls, and whether the problem got resolved, then adjust quickly based on what they learn. Processes should be updated and iterated over time as you learn more about the people you serve, what they value, and the best way to deliver on it.
The Florida Connection
Florida doesn’t need a new law to fix any of this. It already has one.
The Florida Customer Service Standards Act requires state agencies to designate complaint resolvers, track customer satisfaction and complaints, report on them annually, and include customer service goals in their strategic plans. Yet the law carries no penalties when an agency falls short, and a 2026 Senate staff analysis notes that the level of agency compliance with the state’s phone-answering requirements is unknown.
Lawmakers did strengthen it this year, adding a pilot program that requires the Department of Commerce to offer callers a callback, returned by the end of the next business day, rather than leaving them on hold.
That is the gap between intention and action, written into the public record, and residents feel it on the ground. Floridians calling the state’s social services call center recently faced the second-longest wait times in the country, prompting lawmakers to invest $12 million to improve it. In Polk County, the local tax collector publicly criticized the statewide DMV system after technical failures caused major delays, long waits, and service interruptions.
Voters also made a significant decision in The Sunshine State. Amendment 3 passed with 62% of the vote, raising the threshold for taxing Florida’s primary residences, and local governments across the state are now planning for what that means for their budgets. Moments of change like this are when hospitality matters most. The cities and counties that come through it best will be the ones that already know what their residents value, where their service works, and where it doesn’t, so that every decision they make keeps the resident at the center.
In January, a new governor takes office in Tallahassee, and new leaders take their seats in county commissions and city halls across the state. They’ll inherit the same front line teams, the same phone queues, and the same residents who are eager for better service. The framework is already written into state law, so now the focus must be on bringing it to life.
Every leader taking office this winter, at every level and from every party, was elected by people who said they want something different - and most will show up with a strategy to try to activate change.
The one thing they must consider is that much of what exists in the citizen-facing areas won't change. While the higher levels of organizations and governance may change, the functional roles will probably be the same. Which means any good intentions that exist could be prevented by the teams who directly interact with people.
Success will show up in the phone calls that are answered, the problems solved, and the emails returned. It will happen when citizens feel heard and understood - and that the actions government priorities align with their own.
That doesn't mean an end to partisan politics - that nonsense will continue for sure. But there are plenty of places in citizens daily lives where government can affect real change that everyone can agree on. That is where the battle for citizen hospitality is won or lost.
This is where trust lives long after the campaign signs come down and where, regardless of who is in charge, people feel well served and included.
It's also how you keep your citizen at the center of everything you do.
Tony Johnson
* Crafted with care + intentionality by a real human, not A.I.
Tony is an award winning speaker and author on the topics of sales growth, customer experience, and leadership. Tony speaks to thousands annually and has been featured on ABC News and Fox News. He is available for business planning, motivational keynotes, leadership workshops, and employee service skills training.
Tony is the founder of Ignite Your Service + Consulting and the Co-Managing Partner, Co-Owner, and Chief Experience Officer for 4xi Global.
Tony is available to help with your Customer Experience and Employee Engagement Strategies, inspirational keynote talks, team training and development, and executive leadership coaching.
* (C) 2026 The Tony Johnson, LLC. May not be used to train A.I.
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