What the New Presidential Management Agenda Gets Wrong About Customer Experience

Customer experience doesn’t disappear because you stop talking about it.

It just gets worse quietly.

That’s the uncomfortable takeaway from a recent Forrester analysis of the newly released President’s Management Agenda (PMA) and its approach to customer experience in federal services.

If you work in CX, customer service, digital experience, or run a business that depends on customers sticking around, this should concern you. Not because it’s about government. But because it’s a masterclass in how experience erodes when leadership loses focus.

The Vanishing Act: Customer Experience Removed From the Agenda

For the first time since PMAs began in 2001, the new agenda does not even use the terms “customer experience” or “customer service.”

Not once.

That alone should raise eyebrows.

Previous administrations across party lines explicitly committed to improving CX:

• George W. Bush pushed aggressively into e-government.

• Obama set a “world-class” customer service goal across agencies.

• The first Trump administration aimed for CX comparable to leading private-sector organizations.

• The Biden administration went further, targeting federal CX “on par with or better than” private-sector leaders.

This time? Silence.

And silence in CX is never neutral.

From Vision to Housekeeping

The new PMA isn’t hostile to experience. It’s worse.

It’s indifferent.

Instead of a forward-looking vision for how citizens should experience government services, the document reads like a maintenance checklist:

• Consolidate and standardize systems

• Reduce confusing websites

• Go digital-first

• Eliminate data silos

• Cut waste using AI

• Improve cybersecurity

All necessary. All reasonable.

Also completely uninspiring.

There’s no ambition to lead. No benchmark to beat. No “let’s create the best digital experience in the world.” Just operational cleanup framed as progress.

That’s not a CX strategy. That’s facilities management.

When Optics Beat Usability

Here’s where it gets revealing.

On the same day the PMA went live, a directive went out to replace the Calibri font with Times New Roman in the name of “decorum and professionalism.”

Studies consistently show Calibri is easier to read on screens. It improves accessibility and reduces cognitive strain, especially in digital-first environments.

In other words, the font change directly contradicts the stated goal of building services “for real people, not bureaucracy.”

This is what happens when aesthetics override usability and optics matter more than outcomes.

In CX terms, it’s prioritizing how things look internally over how they work externally.

The Real Risk for Businesses

This isn’t just a government problem.

I see the same pattern inside businesses every day.

Customer experience doesn’t usually die because someone says, “We don’t care about customers anymore.”

It dies because leaders say things like:

• “We need efficiency.”

• “We need automation.”

• “We need to reduce costs.”

• “We need better systems.”

All valid goals.

But when those goals are pursued without an explicit CX lens, experience becomes collateral damage.

Customers don’t feel the efficiency.
They feel the friction.

Why Customer Experience Must Be Named

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is assuming CX will “take care of itself” if operations improve.

It won’t.

Customer experience only improves when it’s named, measured, and defended at the leadership level.

When CX disappears from strategy documents, it disappears from decision-making. When it disappears from decision-making, it shows up in churn, complaints, lost trust, and silent defection.

And here’s the kicker.

Customers don’t leave because you lacked a vision statement.
They leave because:

• They couldn’t get answers.

• They couldn’t see status.

• They couldn’t fix simple problems.

• They felt ignored.

That’s CX failure. Not branding failure.

The Takeaway for CX Leaders and Business Owners

Whether you run a federal agency, a financial firm, or a home service company, the lesson is the same:

If customer experience isn’t explicitly prioritized, it will be implicitly sacrificed.

Efficiency without empathy creates friction.
Automation without usability creates resentment.
Silence around CX creates decay.

The organizations that win are the ones that say, out loud and repeatedly:

“How does this feel for the customer?”
“How easy is this for a real human?”
“What friction are we eliminating today?”

Because experience doesn’t improve by accident.

And it certainly doesn’t improve when no one is accountable for it.