Markko Liutkevičius

Karl Ivory Pappel

Sidra Azmat Butt

Ingrid Pappel

Automatization of Cross-Border Customs Declaration: Potential and Challenges

Keywords: Automatization, VAT, customs declaration, import one stop shop, IOSS

Introduction

In 2021, the new VAT directive and legislation will come into effect in the European Union (EU). Already now, the EU member states systematically prepare for adherence with the law. In these endeavours, the expected level of readiness of new customs declaration systems varies greatly between the EU member states. A major shift is caused by difficulties to handle the growing influx of new customs controls and declarations. Today, consignments with intrinsic value under EU member state's specific VAT de minimis threshold (DMT) 1 get a free pass into free circulation. From the beginning of 2021, all goods purchased from outside the EU (third country online marketplaces) by a customer situated in the EU will be declared for VAT collection purposes. Based on 2018 statistics of the Estonian customs authority, the abolishment of VAT DMT will increase the total amount of customs declarations for postal consignments from 23k to 3M, which is roughly 130 times 2 . As maintaining the seamless flow of goods is crucial, EU customs authorities including Estonia are working hard to adapt national customs declaration systems -customs declaration systems are national, i.e., each member state has developed its own implementation [START_REF]World Customs Organization: Annual Report[END_REF]. With the increasing amount of declarations, even small delays in the declaring process would have negative consequences for EU citizens when ordering goods outside the EU.

The aim of this paper is to analyse a case of the Estonian customs authority where automatization of customs declarations is under development, focuses on caseworkers' interpretations of the upcoming challenges, and analyses how changes affect the new work procedures. In order to understand to what extent automatization is applicable in the customs declaration process, we first analyse the current situation and developments of our chosen case country. As Estonia is also member of the EU Commission's Customs Expert Group (CEG), we are focusing on current challenges faced by customs authorities both locally in Estonia and in the EU. In addition, Estonia is known as tech-savvy country where digital signing is widely used [START_REF] Pappel | Systematic digital signing in Estonian e-government processes: influencing factors, technologies, change management[END_REF], digitalization has been reached into invoice workflows [START_REF] Pappel | Implementation of e-invoicing principles in Estonian local governments[END_REF] and local governments have received a very high level of digital document exchange as a basis for the e-service transformation [START_REF] Pappel | Conception and activity directions for training and science centre supporting development of Estonian e-state technologies[END_REF][START_REF] Pappel | Digital records keeping to information governance in Estonian local governments[END_REF][START_REF] Draheim | The design of the Estonian governmental document exchange classification framework[END_REF][START_REF] Pappel | The e-LocGov model for introducing e-Governance into local governments: an Estonian case study[END_REF]. Therefore, we highlight related issues and open ends that should be resolved for the upcoming changes to take place. Furthermore, as interoperability is essential to make different information systems and organizations work together [START_REF] Paide | On the Systematic Exploitation of the Estonian Data Exchange Layer X-Road for Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships[END_REF] and establish automatization, we elaborate the related data requirements set by the European Commission. Hence, we have formed the following research questions:

-RQ1 What procedures are currently performed for customs declarations in the Estonian customs authority? -RQ2 How can automatization of customs declarations aid to cope with challenges of the new VAT directive? -RQ3 What concerns are raised in relation to the upcoming changes? -RQ4 What data quality is required to meet the new requirements with respect to automatization?

2 Theoretical Background [START_REF] Postnord | e-Commerce in Europe[END_REF]. A 2016 study reports that roughly 70% of e-commerce consignments flow through public postal channels, where VAT is unpaid on 65% of consignments, amounting to a loss of VAT income of around 1 billion EUR [START_REF] Basalisco | e-Commerce imports into Europe: VAT and customs treatment[END_REF]. Additionally, by current VAT rules, consignments imported into the EU are completely exempted from VAT if they have an intrinsic value of less than the DMT, which opens up an opportunity for fraud, e.g., through undervaluing expensive items in importation paperwork [START_REF] Lamensch | VAT Fraud: Economic Impact, Challenges and Policy Issues[END_REF].

New EU regulations will be in force from 1 July 2021 in order to combat these problems. Firstly, Council Directive (EU) 2017/2455 [START_REF]The Council of the European Union: COUNCIL DIRECTIVE (EU) 2017/2455[END_REF] will abolish the VAT DMT (Table 1). Specifically, the VAT rate due has to be in accordance to the EU member state in which the consignment receiving customer is located. Secondly, the EU will introduce liability to marketplaces regarding VAT collection on packages sent by merchants on their platform. Finally, the EU will set up a new Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) and special arrangements schemes for online marketplaces. These schemes will not only help to ensure the collection of VAT, but will also introduce much-needed simplifications that make fulfilling VAT obligations easier for businesses [START_REF]The European Commission: COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) 2020/194[END_REF]. The new VAT directive does not only aim to bring simplification to the process of handling the collection of VAT, but also causes the need to innovate for instance, rapid processing of declarations. Until now a customs declaration has had Table 1. VAT and customs duties of consignments imported to the EU before and after 2021.

A new legislation in the EU Customs Code (UCC) brings forth significant changes in how low value customs declarations can be handled [START_REF]The European Commission: COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) 2019/1143[END_REF]. Specifically, a new article (Article 143a UCC-DA "Customs declaration for consignments of low value") is radically changing EU customs and tax legislation for low value consignments. In general terms, this means that it will be possible to pre-lodge Super Reduced Data Sets (SRDS) of low value consignments prior to the UCC Article 5 (33) "presentation of the goods to customs" [START_REF]REGULATION (EU) No 952/2013 OF THE EURO[END_REF]. The SRDS technical details together with other declaration types are specified in the European Customs Data Model (EUCDM), which is part of UCC delegated regulations and the UCC implementing regulations. This separation of physical and fiscal flows of consignments helps to speed up the process of customs clearance and enables the potential of automatization.

Good Governance, Accountability and Transparency

Automatization of customs procedures plays an important role in the modernization of VAT collection. Through facilitating the VAT audits, collection of VAT and automatization of the customs processes, the opportunity to exercise fraud or inappropriate transactions can be minimized, particularly in the field of tax collection. Good governance remains one of the main reasons why a government or administration of a country works hard to provide services that are of quality and free of prejudice or corruption. According to Chan, "a mismanaged enterprise cannot flourish" [START_REF] Chan | The role of country governance on value-added tax and inequality[END_REF]. Therefore, a government in its modern form, particularly in the developed countries, does not only depend on efficiency but also on the principles of accountability. The essence of the theory is to ensure that the citizens of the state are treated as the rightful citizens of the state and not just as the customers.

The research and analysis on good governance is usually limited to the issues related to development; taxation and VAT systems -as mentioned earlier -are an important part of development and require the application of practices related to good governance. The most essential factor utilized in order to ensure accountability in the area of public services, in particular, is transparency. Transparency is an important factor as it helps to hold accountable the personnel involved in the complete process. It remains as one of the main pillars on which the strategy to apply and implement an integrity system is built. According to Grindle "The principle of accountability in the real sense, emphasizes answerability for the use of state resources and assets earmarked for specific purposes, subject to the laws and their requirements" [START_REF] Grindle | Good governance, RIP: A critique and an alternative[END_REF]. Accountability is a factor that is guaranteed through the element of transparency. It is one of the features that are important for decision making. The reason behind it is the fact that decisions that are made, need to conform to the set rules and regulations. A government that depends mostly on the tax revenues as compared to the natural resources or foreign aids is more likely to be held accountable by its citizens; as proper taxation serves as one of the main catalysts for the greater accountability of a government [START_REF] Sok-Gee | Value-added Tax and Economic Efficiency: Role of Country Governance[END_REF].

Related Work

The introduction and boom of e-commerce has allowed the EU countries to receive goods from the non-EU countries which has increased the number of stores and merchants sending products to EU consumers. Until now, as discussed earlier, VAT was not applied to a large proportion of these trades and purchases. However, with the growing number of e-commerce purchases, it has become essential to make sure that the necessary compliance strategies and procedures are in place [START_REF] Dale | The European Union's approach to VAT and e-Commerce[END_REF]. Much research has been previously carried out in order to understand and recommend the necessary course of action to make e-commerce markets VAT compliant. In a research conducted by Papis, it is discussed that the VAT rules for e-commerce across different borders have gone through extensive modernization [START_REF] Papis-Almansa | Vat and insurance: The european union[END_REF].

The emerging trend of e-commerce has also created several different issues related to the legality of the trade as well as the transactions being made online. The question here is to understand how VAT can be collected for these online purchases efficiently and effectively. There are certain compliance rules introduced and applied for the delivering of e-commerce products to customers in Europe. It is now a requirement for the business to establish where the customer is located in case the customer falls in the non-taxable category [START_REF] Hansen | Facilitating cross-border movement of goods: A sustainable approach[END_REF]. There are various different steps introduced that need to be followed to make sure that the businesses are VAT compliant. This includes determining the physical location of the customer in order to calculate the tax to be applied, keeping a record of all of the transactions as well as reports related to the VAT. This suggests that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in order to make sure that VAT for the emerging e-commerce market and the policies related to it are up to date [START_REF] Sousa | Understanding European Cross-border Cooperation: A framework for analysis[END_REF].

According to our previous research [START_REF] Kreos | On Facilitating Cross-Border E-Commerce Through an Automated VAT Declaration System[END_REF], the analysis of the European standards in today's system of VAT declaration is not enough by stating that the current system is "complex, burdensome, time-demanding, inconvenient, and not integrated". Thus, much needs to be done to achieve the required goals. An automated VAT system for this purpose can serve as a corner stone for a system that is agile as well as functional. Although, for the Estonian Government it can be beneficial but much more research is still required.

Research Methodology

The main author is currently involved in the Archimedes3 research and development project 'e-Commerce EU VAT and Duty Declaration Digitalization 2021' as a leading analyst. The aim of the project is to develop an independent platform to exchange customs declaration data between various marketplaces and EU customs authorities. For the whole project and its research, the elements of action design research (ADR) [START_REF] Sein | Action design research[END_REF] along with qualitative methods are applied to address the subject of automatization of customs declarations.

For this research, interviews are chosen as a source of primary data. The interviews are conducted with open ended questions with the purpose to get insight to actual concerns and open ends. In total, five focus group interviews were conducted with eight different people working at the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. Most interviewees were in the leading positions that are related to the changes influenced by VAT directive such as leading specialist, team lead, service manager, development analyst, development specialist from various departments etc. All discussion topics were sent prior to the meetings, so the Estonian customs authority representatives had enough time to prepare and gather relevant people to the focus group interviews. Table 2 provides an overview of the topics and the organizational origin of the participants.

Furthermore, a document analysis was used to serve as the secondary data which contains data gathered from various sources that focuses on the current The existing roles and procedures and data needed for declaring goods. Existing taxation principles.

Customs Law Team (Case worker 1), Customs Services Management Team (Case worker 2), Office for Direct and Indirect Taxation (Case worker 3), Customs application team (Case worker 4).

2

The future roles and procedures for declaring goods. Customs Law Team (Case worker 1), Customs Services Management Team (Case worker 2)

3 Data requirements for low value consignments. Roles and responsibilities in IOSS scheme.

Customs Law Team (Case worker 1), Customs Services Management Team (Case worker 2), Accounting Office (Case worker 5).

4

New updates on data requirements by EUCDM. Quotas management. Banned and dangerous commodity groups in Estonia.

Customs Law Team (Case worker 1), Customs Services Management Team (Case worker 2), Customs Supervision Development Team (Case worker 6).

5

The latest developments of the new customs declaration system. Integration and automatization opportunities.

Customs Law Team (Case worker 1), Customs Services Management Team (Case worker 2), Customs application team (Case worker 7 and Case worker 8).

Table 2. Topics and the origin of participants in focus group interviews.

situation of e-commerce and EU customs authorities. This also involves various standards and legal acts regulating the field.

Results

Answering RQ1: What procedures are currently performed for customs declarations in the Estonian customs authority?

Based on the interviews with Estonian Tax and Customs Board, the main declaration process of goods goes through the following stages: Entry Summary Declaration (ENS), Arrival Notification (NA), Presentation Notification (PN), Temporary Storage Declaration (TSD) and finally, Customs Declaration (CD). In every step, a consignment might be taken under closer inspection (Green, Yellow, Red corridor) in case any irregularities or suspicions occur. The following scheme shows the customs procedural flow in the case where a consignment undergoes customs clearance at the point of import, e.g. the (rare) case where a China post or DHL airplane lands in Estonia and declares goods at Estonian customs.

Although the cases where third countries fly their cargo directly to Estonia almost never happen, the scheme above illustrates procedures that are followed by any EU member state customs authority until the 2021 changes are in effect. It is important to note that to date the national customs ICT systems (such as in the Estonian case: ICS1, IMF, TERM, Complex and PL) are EU member state specific national systems developed by each EU member state customs authority separately. Together with differences in the ICT systems, there are some varia- tions in country specific procedures. An example given by Case worker 1: "Temporary Storage Declaration process has been individual for each EU country, e.g. until 2016 in Germany warranty was not required but in Estonia, warranty was required. There were very diverse approaches. The new EU Customs Code regulates this procedure via establishment of harmonized EU wide data set as well as this process will be unified." (Case worker 1) From the perspective of different logistics operators, many procedural variations exist, e.g. the ENS, NA, PN and TSD procedures have not been required for postal operators. However, for logistics companies (couriers) this exception is valid only for consignments with intrinsic value under the DMT. In 2021, the distinction between different types of operators and other procedural differences will incrementally be harmonized.

Answering RQ2: How can automatization of customs declarations aid to cope with challenges of the new VAT directive?

In order to cope with the changes starting from 2021, the main focus of Estonian Tax and Customs Board is to incrementally implement three new ICT systems: ICS2, NES and IMPULSS. The transition from ICS1 to ICS2 will not happen all at once, but will be the final goal. "ICS1 made separation between consignment view and shipment view, this was a real problem between different stakeholders in the process. ICS2 will use an option called multiple filing, which means that logistics operator can insert data from its part, then goods expediter can add data from its shipment, so the main benefit of ICS2 is that information shared by multiple stakeholders will be used for example to generate common ENS. Initially only 7+1 data elements will be used and later all data elements will be gradually expanded until middle of 2020's." (Case worker 1) The Estonian customs procedures are expected to change as shown in Figure 2.

Adding consignments to EU-wide common repository (ICS2) will ensure security and safety in the Union customs territory, bring consistency of customs clearance, and automatization of risk analysis of a consignment based on specific criteria [START_REF]ICS2 Shared Trader Interface -Vision[END_REF]. The main reasons Estonia is implementing the new customs declaration ICT system (IMPULSS) to replace the existing ICT system (Complex) is because of the outdated technology, non-compliance with the new customs regulations and inability to handle the growing amount of declarations. To handle the growing amount of declarations for consignments of low value (under EUR 150), the separate types of data sets are formulated, called super-reduced data sets (SRDS). "The main difference between SRDS and regular declaration is that there are some types of goods defined that are not allowed to declare and there are specific value limit to what level goods can be ordered. What Estonia today is using is also reduced data set, but it is our specific solution in regards to private customers in Estonia. We decided to ask only 10 data elements, when we could ask for 40. So it has been really simplified." (Case worker 1) "The new regulation requires 22 data elements, so in reality the requirements declaring goods will not get simpler. However the data sets will be harmonized across the EU and there will be some flexibility for some data elements". (Case worker 1) "IMPULSS will be the system where VAT related information will be managed. The IOSS scheme and special arrangements will be dealt in IMPULSS. The IOSS scheme is efficient because goods will be released from VAT at the moment of entry to the EU. As time is a critical factor, goods flow and fiscal flow will be separated so that flow of physical goods would not be delayed because of declaration procedures." (Case worker 2).

Figure 3, which is based on our analysis, illustrates the expected future simplified process of physical consignment and data flow in case a low value consignment is purchased from a third country marketplace.

The process model explains the simplicity of declaring goods using the IOSS scheme (delivered duty paid -DDP). In reality, a logistics operator and declarant might not be in the same roles and a marketplace might not directly send the pre-lodged customs declaration to the EU customs authority (intermediate stakeholder could handle this type of task).

In 2021, if a marketplace facilitates a Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) sale from a third country to an EU member state, it will be responsible for paying VAT because it will be deemed to have purchased and then sold the goods. Hence, the marketplace is assigned to an IOSS scheme and has a VAT IOSS identification number registered in one of the EU member states. After checkout, the marketplace knows the assumed destination member state of the customer, either from IP address or from a destination address that the customer has specified. In our analysis, we assume the DDP model, i.e., the customer pays VAT to marketplace at the point of checkout. After checkout, the marketplace will send the pre-lodged customs declaration (with SRDS) to the destination customs au- thority's ICT system. The SRDS can be sent to customs up to 30 days before the physical consignment arrives to customs. In that case, if the consignment is declared in another EU member state customs, the data set will be erased automatically.

In terms of the fiscal process, since the EU customs have periodical reporting procedures to tax authorities about in which country the goods were declared according to where the actual customer resided, the overview of expected VAT is still received through the collaboration of tax authorities. For example, if the customer lived in Estonia but goods were declared in Germany, then the VAT collected after checkout will be registered in the German customs and the reporting will go to the German tax authority who then periodically notifies the Estonian tax authority regarding how much tax is to be received from the marketplace's EU IOSS representative. Using such a separation of processes, automatization of declarations can be developed as well as transparency will be enabled, because tax authorities will be able to audit data sets and compare them with taxes received from third country marketplace IOSS representatives.

Answering RQ3: What concerns are raised in relation to the upcoming changes?

Multiple concerns were expressed throughout multiple interviews (see Table 3): IOSS VAT ID abuse, readiness, shifting the responsibility, localization and basis for developing the new CD system.

Based on the new VAT directive, the IOSS VAT ID number of a marketplace will be the unique number filled under specific customs declaration data element in the SRDS. The customs authorities will not check correct ownership of the IOSS number, only the validity of it. There are strict rules for if someone fraudulently uses another's IOSS number, then the IOSS number itself may be declared invalid. There are ongoing discussions on how to protect these numbers. Regarding the success of implementing the new CD ICT system IMPULSS, the Estonian tax authority heavily relies on what business decisions will be made by the different stakeholders; how will the postal operators contribute and how much will the couriers (e.g. DHL) contribute. During our research, the collaboration was thoroughly not initiated. Additionally, a concern was expressed regarding a mismatch between who is responsible for the content of a consignment versus who presents the customs declaration. Currently, the ones who are responsible (e.g. postal operators) have not seen the inside of a consignment. In the future, the responsible one should be the marketplace who presents the data for customs declaration. With the new changes ahead, a localisation issue seems to become a complication because so far, all declarations presented to the Estonian customs authorities are required to be in the local language (Estonian). However, the SRDS coming from third country marketplace is expected to be in English. Finally, it is still undecided whether the newest draft version or the current version of EUCDM will be required by the EU Commission. It could still be that different EU member states will implement different versions. For now, it is clear that from 2023, all member states will have to implement the newest version. However, before that there will be a period of confusion as evidenced by the Estonian example and how difficulties can occur for the implementation of the new CD system.

Answering RQ4: What data quality is required to meet the new requirements with respect to automatization?

During our research on the EU Customs Data Model (EUCDM), we noticed a crucial change in the data set. While consulting with the Estonian customs authority, the feedback suggested that there is no clear understanding of which version of EUCDM will be required as the basis of data sets for low value consignments in 1 July 2021. The data requirements are in Annex B of UCC-DA [START_REF][END_REF], and their formats and codes are in Annex B of UCC-IA [START_REF]The European Commission[END_REF]. By analyzing the UCC Annex B, we found that for some data elements there is no clear understanding of the required format (e.g. length, clarity). For example, the goods description field, which describes the goods in a consignment, does not have a length or material description requirement despite the field being strictly related to a specific nomenclature code called a Harmonized System (HS) code. Based on our interviews with the Estonian customs authority, if such requirements were in place, validation of consignments could be automated to a large extent. The quality of data-based customs clearance depends on the quality of data sent in advance. Historically, this data has been non-existent for low value consignments and very poor overall. Poor data quality within the logistics chain leads to obscure or missing details in import declarations and makes the risk analysis and fiscal assessment of consignments more difficult for the customs authorities. In 2021, the volume of consignments requiring customs clearance will increase dramatically, thus the workload on customs authorities across the EU will increase. Anecdotally, based on our interviews, we know that European customs declarations will increase to approximately 4 billion per year. For example, for the Estonian customs authorities, the total volume of customs declarations for postal consignments would increase by roughly 130 times.

Limitations and Future Work

In the current research, we mainly concentrated on the changes in the customs authority and customs declaration process. The actual impact will be influencing the wider stakeholder ecosystem of e-commerce (marketplaces, declarants, IOSS intermediaries and postal and logistics operators) and many additional digitalization attempts to various data sets and procedures such as ENS, NA, PN and TSD. We suggest that there should be further analysis and research done in these specific fields.

Conclusion

This research shows that, by the example of the Estonian customs authority, automatization of customs declarations requires joint efforts by various stakeholders. The main concerns are not only related to technological developments but also to the clear guidelines that are being developed by the EU Commission, and also to the affected stakeholders such as postal operators and couriers. We also identified various difficulties and complications that the Estonian customs authority may face in the process of implementing the new requirements by 1 July 2021. Based on the interview results, the main improvements and concerns were presented as well as the description of the current procedures. The current procedures were analyzed through an overview of ICT systems that are currently being used in relation to customs declaration procedures. The new data quality requirements are presented in connection to the newly planned information systems. The results of this research serve as a good stepping stone to the goal of the Archimedes project which is to develop an independent platform to exchange customs declaration data between various marketplaces and the EU customs authorities. We have conducted this research to set an example and help the other EU member state customs authorities to rapidly develop and scale their systems.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Customs declaration stages and ICT systems used in case goods are imported to Estonia (until 31 December 2020).

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig.2. Customs declaration stages and ICT systems used in case goods are imported to Estonia (after ICS2 implementation period).

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Expected IOSS scheme process in case DDP (VAT is paid at checkout).

Table 1 .

 1 VAT and customs duties of consignments imported to EU before and after 2021.

	Value of consignment	Before 2021		After 2021
		VAT	Customs duty	VAT	Customs duty
	Under DMT	Exempt from VAT	Exempt from duty	VAT due	Exempt from duty
	Over DMT, under 150€	VAT due	Exempt from duty	VAT due	Exempt from duty
	Over 150€	VAT due	Customs duty due	VAT due	Customs duty due

Table 1 .

 1 Topics and the origin of participants in focus group interviews

	Interview Topics	Origin of case worker
	1

Table 1 .

 1 Topics and quotations from meetings

	Topic	Case worker	Quotation
	IOSS VAT ID abuse	Case worker 2	"Marketplaces will likely be trustworthy, they will likely
			not commit IOSS number fraud, but someone else could
			fraudulently use the IOSS number of a Marketplace."
	Readiness	Case worker 1	"The IMPULSS technical specification will come in the
			first half of next year (2020). Were promised in the
			beginning of next year, but…"
	Shifting the responsibility	Case worker 1	"This pressure stems from the fact that currently those who present data are exactly the ones responsible. This is
			one of the reasons why there is a desire to shift this
			responsibility from parties like Omniva, who have not
			even seen inside the consignment, to those who have
			actually produced the data. But this change has not been
			made. For us, the responsible party is still Omniva."
	Localization	Case worker 3	"Customs declarations presented to us have to be in
			Estonian."
	Basis for developing the new CD system	Case worker 1	"Currently, the plan is to proceed with the knowledge that we will be implementing the newest version; up until we
			receive the very final decision on this. As long as we see
			any possibility, we will implement the newest version."

Table 3 .

 3 Topics and quotations from meetings.

https://archimedes.ee/en/archimedes-foundation/


Hendrik Scholta
email: hendrik.scholta@ercis.uni-muenster.de

Sebastian Halsbenning
email: sebastian.halsbenning@ercis.uni-muenster.de

Bettina Distel
email: bettina.distel@ercis.uni-muenster.de

Jörg Becker
email: joerg.becker@ercis.uni-muenster.de

Walking a mile in their shoes-A citizen journey to explore public service delivery from the citizen perspective

Keywords: Customer Journey, User Journey, Service Design, Digital Government, Citizen Journey

Up to now, public administrations have taken a supply-oriented approach to the design of electronic services for citizens resulting in low usage rates. In contrast, companies in the private sector have been relying on demandoriented service design for many years. They make use of so-called 'customer journeys' to better understand the perception of services by customers and to tailor the design of electronic services to that perception. Although also governments and public administrations have been increasingly recognizing the benefits of customer journeys, there is still a lack of research on the application of customer journeys in the public sector. Especially, there is no customer journey that is applicable to a wide range of public services and serves as a general blueprint for public services. Therefore, in this paper, we present a generic citizen journey that depicts the delivery process for transactional public services from a citizen perspective. The citizen journey depicts the points of interaction that citizens have with public services. We evaluated the citizen journey in a focus group with public servants and a survey with citizens. The evaluation reveals the citizen journey's general usefulness. Researchers benefit from our citizen journey through a better understanding of the service delivery process and the different steps that could impact citizen experience. Practitioners can use the citizen journey in the design of citizen-centric services and during the actual service delivery to guide citizens through the delivery process.

Introduction

The digitalization of the public sector progresses and public administrations have been increasingly offering more of their services to citizens electronically. While eservices in the private sector have been used by customers for many years (e.g. online banking), the usage rates for public e-services are still at a low level [START_REF] Akkaya | A Comprehensive Analysis of E-Government Adoption in the German Household[END_REF][START_REF] Anastasopoulou | Exploring citizens' intention to use e-government services: the role of cultural bias[END_REF][START_REF] Belanche | Integrating trust and personal values into the technology acceptance model: The case of e-government services adoption[END_REF][START_REF] Rana | Citizen's adoption of an e-government system: Validating extended social cognitive theory (SCT)[END_REF]. One reason for this discrepancy between the use of private and public e-services is, among other things, the different role of customers and citizens. In contrast to the private sector, where service designers focus on the customer perspective, researchers repeatedly point out that a more demand-driven perspective is needed in the public sector and that public administrations must design their (electronic) services according to the needs of citizens [START_REF] Klischewski | Sustainability of E-Government Success: An lntegrated Research Agenda[END_REF].

In service design, an established and widely used instrument to achieve a high level of customer orientation and customer satisfaction is the customer journey [START_REF] Richardson | Using Customer Journey Maps to Improve Customer Experience[END_REF][START_REF] Schmitt | Customer Experience Management: A Revolutionary Approach to Connecting with Your Customers[END_REF]. A customer journey consists of the sequence of all points of contact, so-called touchpoints, between the customer and the company, brand or product in the course of a purchase, for example when placing an order [START_REF] Stickdorn | This is Service Design Thinking. Basics -Tools -Cases[END_REF]. Customer journeys are used to visualize, analyze and ultimately improve these points of contact [START_REF] Stickdorn | This is Service Design Thinking. Basics -Tools -Cases[END_REF]. The points of interaction are viewed from the customer's perspective. Customer journeys create an understanding of the ideal steps that customers ideally go through in order to purchase a product. This reveals artefacts and activities that are of high importance in the interaction between customers and companies and which should, therefore, be given high priority in service design, such as relevant websites. Customer journeys enable the identification of weaknesses and potential for improvement in these artifacts and activities. Thus, their application is particularly valuable as customers are involved in the creation process of a customer journey and complement the company's internal evaluation of the points of contact [START_REF] Norton | Using the customer journey to road test and refine the business model[END_REF].

Meanwhile, also public administrations recognize this trend and move from a more supplier-and service-oriented perspective to more user-centric and demand-oriented approaches [START_REF] Kaliontzoglou | A secure e-Government platform architecture for small to medium sized public organizations[END_REF]. For example, the Danish Digital Strategy 2016-2020 explicitly refers to the development of customer journeys as a means of increasing transparency for citizens' rights and obligations [START_REF]Local Government Denmark and Danish Regions: A stronger and more secure digital Denmark: Digital Strategy Copenhagen[END_REF]. Also, the promotion of demand-driven services with a high degree of personalization is an important trend, as citizens want services to be more closely tailored to individual needs and want to be more involved in the design and delivery of services [START_REF]2016 -E-Government in Support of Sustainable Development[END_REF]. Therefore, customer journeys have been increasingly used by public administrations and governments to ultimately improve the quality and use of public e-services [e.g. [START_REF] Cordes | Mapping the user journey[END_REF][START_REF]Journey mapping[END_REF][START_REF]Huddle: Designing better government information and services: A service design toolkit for government[END_REF][START_REF] Ivey-Williams | Why we use user journey maps in government[END_REF][START_REF]CX CAP Goal Team: Mapping the Cross-Agency Customer Experience Journey[END_REF]. Particularly with the increasing complexity of digital technology and the growing importance of e-services, it becomes increasingly important to understand and address the needs of citizens [START_REF] Seufert | From eLearning to Digital Transformation: A Framework and Implications for L&D[END_REF].

Although there are various examples of public administrations that apply citizen journeys in practice, there is scarce research on the use of the customer journey concept in the public sector [START_REF] Trischler | Designing Public Services: The usefulness of three service design methods for identifying user experiences[END_REF][START_REF] Parker | The Journey to the Interface. How public service design can connect users to reform[END_REF][START_REF] Crosier | Customer Journey Mapping as an Advocacy Tool for Disabled People: A Case Study[END_REF]. Especially, researchers have not created a generic citizen journey that is applicable to a wide range of government services. To become more citizen-centric and understand the needs and desires of citizens, public administrations should create and analyze citizen journeys in public service design. To release public administrations from the necessity to design each journey and service from scratch, a blueprint for citizen journeys is deemed useful. Thus, we aim to support the application of the customer journey concept in the public sector by addressing the following research goal: Design of a generic citizen journey that depicts the delivery process for transactional public services from a citizen perspective. We focus on transactional services such as applying for child benefit. Other types of services such as informational (e.g. information on public events on websites), communicative (e.g. e-mail interaction) or participatory (e.g. participatory budgeting) services are not covered.

Despite their usefulness, the transfer of strategies from the private to the public sector is repeatedly criticized because of the sectors' fundamental differences. Several aspects need to be considered before implementing approaches that have been proven to be useful in the private sector. For example, customers and citizens cannot be treated equally, as they have different roles in the service process. In section 2, we briefly review central differences between the public and the private sector. Thus, during the design of our citizen journey, which is presented in sections 3 (method) and 4 (results), we put specific emphasis on the differences between the public and private sectors. The citizen journey is intended to support service design in public administrations. It enables administrations to incorporate not only internal considerations in the service design but to consider also the citizens' needs and desires. Additionally, administrations can use the journey during service delivery to guide citizens through the process. Further implications for research and practice are discussed in section 5.

Research Background

In the following section, the central concepts used in this study are delineated. Furthermore, we discuss their general applicability to the public sector context and shortly introduce the scarce extant public sector literature.

Customer Journeys and the Public Sector. The idea of customer journeys originates in the field of marketing research [START_REF] Følstad | Customer journeys: a systematic literature review[END_REF]. Hence, the majority of research and established design principles of such a journey are tailored to customer-company relationships. A customer journey describes how customers experience the totality of touchpoints between a customer and company. The fact that greater attention is now being paid to the customer's perspective is due to a paradigm shift in recent years, leading companies to increasingly focus on creating value for their customers that goes beyond the mere product [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF]. Whereas in the past, customer management was mainly concentrated on generating maximum monetary success from customer relationships, the focus is now more on conveying a positive customer experience.

Similarly, the public sector has witnessed paradigm shifts in the past decades, first moving from traditional public administration to New Public Management (NPM) and, more recently, moving from the NPM paradigm to what Bryson et al. call the 'emerging approach to public administration' [START_REF] Bryson | Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management[END_REF]. Under NPM, public administrations are viewed from an economic and managerial perspective and, as a consequence, citizens are treated as customers [START_REF] Bryson | Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management[END_REF]. However, lately, this approach has been criticized for being shortsighted and reducing the citizens' role in the public sector too much. Instead, researchers point to the importance of appreciating the citizen as being multifaceted and considering the different roles the citizenry can take during the service process [START_REF] Lehtonen | Multiple voices of the user in public sector services[END_REF], from being a passive receiver of services to being involved in the policy process [START_REF] Distel | Who Are the Users of Digital Public Services? A Critical Reflection on Differences in the Treatment of Citizens as 'Users' in e-government Research[END_REF]. Thus, it is important to not only change the term 'customer journey' to citizen journey but to take into consideration the different notions this term encompasses.

Marketing research uses the concept of customer experience which describes "a multidimensional construct focusing on a customer's cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, and social responses to a firm's offerings during the customer's entire purchase journey." [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF] Companies are eager to understand the customer experience because "[t]he key objective of tracking the experience at customer touchpoints is to develop an understanding of how an experience can be enriched for the customer throughout what marketers call the 'customer decision-making process'." [START_REF] Schmitt | Customer Experience Management: A Revolutionary Approach to Connecting with Your Customers[END_REF] Companies use customer journeys to document and understand the experience a customer makes while interacting with a product [START_REF] Richardson | Using Customer Journey Maps to Improve Customer Experience[END_REF]. Ostensibly, the same rationale might drive the use of citizen journeys in the public sector. Citizen-centricity is often claimed as desirable, both by practitioners and researchers, but the application of citizen journeys is more complex than that. Improving the perceived quality of public services impacts the efficiency with which public policy is put in practice [START_REF] Araujo | Evolving government-citizen ties in public service design and delivery[END_REF]. Public administrations are accountable to the citizenry and the administration's overall goal is to "[c]reate public value in such a way that what the public most cares about is addressed effectively and what is good for the public is put in place" [START_REF] Bryson | Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management[END_REF]. In this sense, citizen-centricity is about more than just satisfaction with the services provided; it is about the assurance of public values.

As mentioned in the introduction, only few examples of citizen journeys can be found in academic literature. One of the earliest applications of the customer journey concept to the public sector is provided by Parker and Heapy [START_REF] Parker | The Journey to the Interface. How public service design can connect users to reform[END_REF] who provide insights into service design from the public and private sector. Although they provide extant cases of customer and citizen integration, neither do they provide a template for a user journey nor do they focus on digitized services. Another example is given by Crosier and Handford [START_REF] Crosier | Customer Journey Mapping as an Advocacy Tool for Disabled People: A Case Study[END_REF] who provide a customer journey for the blind and partially sighted people. However, the journey they present is less tied to a specific good or service and more focused on the on-site shopping experience of disabled people. A recent example of an application of the concept is given by Trischler and Scott [START_REF] Trischler | Designing Public Services: The usefulness of three service design methods for identifying user experiences[END_REF] who propose new methods for public service design, among which are customer journeys and visualization and mapping techniques.

Design and Visualization of Customer and Citizen Journeys. Customer journeys are typically divided into different subsequent phases. However, there is no consensus in literature on how broad or narrow these phases are. While Nenonen et al. [START_REF] Nenonen | Customer Journeya method to investigate user experience[END_REF] differentiate between orientation, approach, action, depart, and evaluation, the most basic definition of customer journey phases can be found in the work by Lemon and Verhoef [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF] who distinguish a pre-purchase, a purchase and a post-purchase phase. The prepurchase phase includes a customer's touchpoints before purchasing a service. This refers to all activities that fall in the period from the point where a customer recognizes a need to search for a solution to the point of his or her consideration to satisfy this need by purchasing the service. Subsequently, in the purchase phase she or he makes the choice to order a service, and finally pays for it. The purchase phase is generally seen as the heart of the customer journey with companies concentrating their efforts to improve customers' shopping experience. Finally, the post-purchase phase encompasses a customer's experience after buying a service. This includes consumption, usage, customer engagements, and service requests. A customer journey is not an isolated process as previous experiences are included as well, which influence future customer journeys. Furthermore, customers can quit their journey in any phase.

To enhance the understandability of a customer journey its visual representation has become increasingly important, for instance, in a diagram or a storyboard with pictures, sketches, and photos [START_REF] Richardson | Using Customer Journey Maps to Improve Customer Experience[END_REF][START_REF] Parker | The Journey to the Interface. How public service design can connect users to reform[END_REF][START_REF] Følstad | Customer journeys: a systematic literature review[END_REF]. Although no standard for modelling a customer journey exists, visual representations allow a company to compare different service experiences and to compare the offered services to those of competitors [START_REF] Stickdorn | This is Service Design Thinking. Basics -Tools -Cases[END_REF]. Since these journeys represent experiences from a customer or citizen perspective, users are actively involved in their creation [START_REF] Norton | Using the customer journey to road test and refine the business model[END_REF][START_REF] Parker | The Journey to the Interface. How public service design can connect users to reform[END_REF][START_REF] Jaakkola | Service experience co-creation: conceptualization, implications, and future research directions[END_REF]. This helps in identifying factors that influence user satisfaction, including problem areas and opportunities for future innovation.

Research Design

This paper follows the design science research (DRS) paradigm which aims at the development of IT artifacts, namely constructs, methods, models and instantiations [START_REF] Hevner | Design Science in Information Systems Research[END_REF]. This paradigm is suitable for our paper since we propose a generic citizen journey which is a model and abstract representation of the public service delivery process from the citizens' perspective.

In order to conduct DSR to design our citizen journey, we follow the research process proposed by Österle et al. [START_REF] Österle | Memorandum on design-oriented information systems research[END_REF] that consists of the steps analysis, design, evaluation and diffusion. In the analysis step, we identified and investigated our research problem. We found the need and anchors for our research in practice-oriented and academic literature as presented in sections 1 and 2. This literature provided us with insights on current practices in government agencies and what knowledge we can build on from academic literature, especially on customer journeys applied in the private sector.

Subsequently, we developed the citizen journey in the design step. We built our citizen journey based on a well-established customer journey [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF]. This is appropriate since the concept of customer journeys has been widely researched in academic literature on the private sector. Despite commonalities between the private and public sector, there are substantial differences so academic results cannot be transferred unreflectingly between them. Therefore, based on differences between the sectors and during discussions within our research group, we developed a first version of our citizen journey.

The evaluation step is essential to provide evidence for the usefulness of the developed artifact. We conducted two evaluations to redesign and develop further our version of the citizen journey. These evaluations were not focused on one specific service but on public services for citizens in general. In both evaluations, we asked our respondents to report on their experiences across situations and different public services. The first evaluation was conducted by means of a focus group. We aimed at interviewing public servants from different departments who do not hold a management position to get insights from different administrative perspectives and to ensure that the participants are in contact with citizens in their daily routine. This group of employees has the best insights into the processes and contact points of the citizens with the public administration. We structured the focus group interview along with six key questions with an evaluation of the first version of the citizen journey being the core of the discussion. A total of six employees from three different departments (social welfare, citizens' office and registry office) took part in the discussion, which lasted 105 minutes, was recorded and then transcribed. We conducted the analysis with a focus on the completeness and correctness of the citizen journey's phases, the sequence representing the delivery processes and the appropriateness of presentation and visual design. The results from the first evaluation were transferred to an additional design step in order to iteratively revise our citizen journey. Based on the insights gained through the focus group, the citizen journey was refined. Specific suggestions of the focus group participants but also statements on the general use of citizen journeys were evaluated and translated into a refined version of the citizen journey.

This step was followed by a second evaluation. As highlighted in sections 1 and 2, it is of utmost importance to include citizens into the development of citizen journeys in order to adequately capture their experiences with public service delivery. Thus, following the focus group and the re-design of the citizen journey, we carried out a survey to identify the steps and critical points of contact that are relevant from the citizens' perspective. The survey was conducted in person at the citizens' office of a small town in Germany. In order to reach as many different citizens as possible, we opted for a paper-based survey. The questionnaire consisted of several questions that revolved around the requested service, the citizens' preparation for this service request, and reasons for showing up in person. The respondents were also shown the refined citizen journey and were asked to evaluate the phases, their sequence, and their particular steps and order of steps. In total, 44 citizens took part in this non-representative survey. Similar to the analysis of the focus group discussion, the answers from the survey were evaluated qualitatively and with regard to the phases and steps of the citizen journey, their form of presentation and critical points of contact. After the analysis of the survey results, the citizen journey was re-designed a second time to adequately account for the citizens' experience with public service delivery.

Finally, the diffusion step will be conducted through dissemination activities such as scientific conferences and articles as well as workshops with practitioners.

4

Citizen Journey

Design

A customer journey can be divided into three phases [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF]: prepurchase, purchase and postpurchase. This subdivision is also suitable for a transactional citizen journey (cf. Fig. 1). We renamed the three phases to preparation, application and result since a transactional service in the public sector-in contrast to the use of a service in the private sector-is typically characterized by the processing of an application [START_REF] Goldkuhl | What does it mean to serve the citizen in e-services? -Towards a practical theory founded in socio-instrumental pragmatism[END_REF][START_REF] Goldkuhl | Generic regulation model: the evolution of a practical theory for egovernment[END_REF][START_REF] Greunz | Integrating e-government infrastructures through secure xml document containers[END_REF]. In contrast to a customer journey, where the customer usually completes the journey successfully, i.e. receives a product after the necessary steps have been taken, the outcome for a citizen in the public sector is more uncertain, as there may be no entitlement to a service. In the following paragraphs, we describe the three phases in detail.

Preparation phase. The subdivision of this phase from a customer journey [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF] in need recognition, consideration and search is adopted here with minor changes. Most citizen journeys start with a need recognition, which is either triggered by the citizen or by law [START_REF] Seufert | From eLearning to Digital Transformation: A Framework and Implications for L&D[END_REF]. Most of the interactions between a citizen and the public administration are prescribed by legal regulations and are therefore mandatory [START_REF] Norton | Using the customer journey to road test and refine the business model[END_REF][START_REF] Bozeman | All Organizations are Public: Bridging Public and Private Organizational Theories[END_REF]. Needs triggered by law include, for example, the extension of a passport or driver's license, which becomes necessary due to reaching an expiry date. In such cases, a public administration may also inform a citizen of the need to apply for a renewal. In addition to the needs enforced by law, there are voluntary needs that are triggered by citizens themselves, such as marriage, business registration or parental allowance. Such needs are not triggered by law. There may also be needs for which no public services are available, for example, for a permission to open a shop on Sundays, as this may be prohibited for most businesses in some countries. Citizens can become aware of a situation both online (e.g. through information on a web portal) and offline (e.g. through conversations with other people), which can create a need.

Once the need has been detected, the citizen makes the channel choice for the subsequent activities of this phase, and various online (e.g. app) and offline options (e.g. city hall) are available. Here, a substantial difference to a customer journey becomes apparent: The citizen journey does not include the identification of different potential providers, since there is mostly only one provider for a service, usually the local government. For example, a parking permit may only be applied for at the respective municipal administration of the place of residence. Exceptions are, for example, the selection of a public school or kindergarten. As these are exceptions to the rule, the focus is on the choice of channel and not on other choices. The discussion on the online and offline use of public services and according usage rates indicate the importance of the channel choice for the public sector.

Afterwards, the citizen starts to search for information about a service to address the need, which can take place online and offline. This search can be different depending on the need. For example, a citizen can conduct a general search to gain more insights into the topic. This kind of search focuses exclusively on general information and does not address a specific service or public administration (general search). In some cases, citizens already know which service they are looking for and collect information about this service independently of the responsible public administration (service-specific search). An example is searching for the amount of child benefit to which a family is entitled according to the number of children. As the use of public services is usually accompanied by the submission of documents and forms, this search also includes searching for forms (e.g. online forms and PDFs) and information on what additional documents are generally required to be submitted-regardless of the responsible administration. While the search for information in e-commerce also includes the comparison of different services and providers (e.g. with regard to price and quality), these aspects are rare when searching for information on public services, as the responsible administration is often determined by the place of residence of the citizen or other properties such as his or her employer. It may also happen that citizens know the service and responsible administration and search the administration's website to find the opening hours, contact persons or online forms of this administration (administration-specific search). Finally, it can happen that all the necessary details of the service in question are known and therefore no search for information is necessary (no search). It is possible that citizens want to use electronic services, but are forced to use services onsite because the requested service is not offered electronically.

Fig. 1. Citizen Journey

Application phase. Similar to the second phase of a customer journey with the steps choice, ordering and payment [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF], the second phase of our citizen journey begins with a choice. This includes, among other things, the decision to receive a voluntary service, such as parental allowance, or the choice of when to apply. If several people are entitled to receive a service for a certain case, the decision can also be made as to which one of them will receive it. In most cases, the choice of channel for the subsequent steps of this phase is the only choice citizens have since service and responsible administration are often predetermined.

In contrast to e-commerce, the next step of this phase is not ordering but preparing the application, because citizens have to fill in forms and submit documents that are checked by the administration in order to receive a service. For example, when applying for a building permit, an applicant may need to submit a drawing from an architect [START_REF] Greunz | Integrating e-government infrastructures through secure xml document containers[END_REF]. The citizen must collect the documents and in the case of a postal application also the forms to be filled in before an application for a service can be made.

After preparing the application, the citizen conducts the application, which corresponds to the order in a customer journey. The conduction step is again divided into individual substeps. In the offline channel, access to the service can consist of visiting the city hall and contacting public servants or-as with a postal application from home -sitting at a desk. When choosing an online channel, the access consists of visiting the administration's website or opening an app. Some services require the authentication of citizens. The public administration must, therefore, ensure that the citizen is the person he or she claims to be. The authentication is specific to a citizen journey and barely occurs in a customer journey. However, exceptions are, for instance, purchases of a banking product. Depending on the level of security required, there are a number of options for authentication in the online channel, such as a user account with password for services with a lower security level, or identification with an eID for a high security level. For services such as booking an appointment at the city hall, authentication may even be completely unnecessary. In the offline channel, authentication can be done by personal appearance and an ID card.

During the subsequent completion, the necessary forms are filled in and necessary documents are attached. In electronic solutions, a service can be handled completely online, so that the citizen can fill in forms and upload additional documents. When using an online portal, the documents can be automatically checked for completeness. Portals can serve as online storage for electronic documents so that a document can be uploaded only once and then used in applications for various services.

The final submission of the application with the attached documents can be done online or offline. Digitalized service offers enable the online submission of an application. It may also be possible to electronically fill in and print out forms and then submit them by mail. Another possibility is that forms can be submitted online, but additional paper documents must be sent to the administration via mail. Essentially, the submission can be made by mail, fax, digitally or in a personal meeting.

Depending on the service, a payment may be required, either at the time of submission or at an earlier or later stage in the process. While this step is mandatory in ecommerce, citizens do not have to pay for every public service.

Result phase. The result phase of our citizen journey has commonalities but also differences to the according phase of a customer journey which contains the steps consumption, usage, engagement and service requests [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF]. In our case, first the channel choice for the next steps of this phase takes place. Here too, various online and offline options are available, such as contact by e-mail, telephone and mail. This step is optional, as in this phase only the receipt of the result is mandatory and the channel for this notification is often specified by the public administration.

Afterwards, citizens have the opportunity to make inquiries. For example, the current status of the procedure can be inquired by telephone or via an online portal, or questions can be asked about the understanding of information and documents requested by the administration.

While questions from citizens are directed to the administration, the administration can also contact citizens. This happens if the documents submitted by the applicant are unclear or incomplete and therefore missing documents or information must be submitted. In such cases, the administration informs the applicant of the need to submit further documents. The citizen then provides the necessary documents via the previously chosen channel. This step differs from a customer journey as there are usually no missing documents to be submitted after the purchase. An exception can be, for example, the submission of a direct debit mandate after the online acquisition of an insurance.

Irrespective of whether inquiries have been made and further documents have been submitted, the next step is to receive a result. One difference to e-commerce is this result of a service, that is, the notification. The public administration has made a decision based on the information provided and the citizen now receives this decision. In the positive case, the applicant receives the requested service. This can be a unique action such as issuing a certificate of good conduct or regular actions such as paying housing benefits. In contrast to e-commerce, where the purchase of a product is less frequently refused, the negative case of an application not being granted can occur more frequently in e-government. Of course, purchases can also be refused in the private sector, for example in insurance companies. However, these are exceptions when considering the entire private sector. In addition, customers in e-commerce often receive the product immediately after purchase; in the case of public services, the notification is issued only after the application has been examined in detail. Here, too, there are exceptions in the private sector, such as online shopping, and administrations can also transmit documents automatically and immediately online after the application was submitted such as resident parking permits. The result is received in person, by mail or by electronic means.

The next step is the use of the result. Citizens can use a notification and the according permissions, for example, to travel (passport), send a child to school (school registration) or invest the payments received (child benefit). Although this step is similar to the corresponding step in a customer journey [START_REF] Lemon | Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey[END_REF], the use in a citizen journey is different. Public services often refer to a special entitlement and citizens cannot choose between different service providers and, therefore, the relevance for future 'buying' decisions is comparatively low. Since a service is not always granted, this step is optional in a citizen journey. Citizens might also decline to use the permissions granted. For instance, a citizen might receive a building permit but then he or she declines to construct a building.

Finally, the applicants can give feedback to the public administration, for example on the quality of the service or user satisfaction. Citizens can point out weaknesses in the process and provide ideas on improvements to the service. Additionally, inquiries regarding the individual notification, its understandability and use can be part of the feedback. In contrast to e-commerce, results of public services are more difficult to return and reverse. For example, it is more difficult to cancel a divorce than to return a product to an online retailer. Nevertheless, a citizen may wish to appeal against an administrative decision. This takes the form of a new citizen journey, i.e. an objection or appeal triggers a new citizen journey.

Evaluation

During the first evaluation with the focus group, the participants evaluated the citizen journey overall positively. They rated the general approach of a citizen journey as valuable and highly relevant as it facilitates a better understanding of administrative processes from the citizens' perspective. The participants argued on basis of their daily routine in which they often face citizens who have problems to understand the administrative processes. Here, a citizen journey would provide guidance for applicants to indicate in which sequence to receive a certain service. Moreover, the actual sequence of the initial citizen journey was rated as a good approximation to the real-world phenomenon as summarized by one interviewee: "Well, I actually think, it all fits to get an understanding of [the process]." Especially, the preparation phase offered little room for controversies as the participants commonly agreed on the three suggested steps.

The discussion also revealed some inaccuracies in the concrete sequence and completeness of steps in phases two and three. For the practitioners, the lack of an authentication step in the application phase was crucial and criticized. Here, the participants argued for the importance of authentication in public administration being mandatory in numerous service delivery processes. Consequently, we adopted this suggestion as an optional substep since not every service requires the citizen's authentication.

Additionally, it turned out that the steps of the result phase needed some redesign. The interviewees argued that in most cases the service delivery process is not finished with the result, i.e. the actual service delivery and its usage. After receiving the result and using it, two distinct kinds of feedback could arise depending on the legal quality: first, feedbacks could occur that are legally irrelevant acts such as claims, simple requests and other statements. This step was incorporated as a final step in the result phase after the first evaluation. Second, feedback can occur in terms of legal means to challenge a certain public service, such as legal objections or appeals. This underpins the relation to subsequent citizen journeys since concrete legal actions would trigger a new citizen journey as outlined in section 4.1.

Furthermore, our first plain design of the citizen journey stimulated a discussion on the visual representation and possible embedding into websites. The participants suggested to design the journey comparably to a pathway that leads citizens through the process of consuming a public service. We did not follow suggestions to implement the citizen journey into a website or app as this suggestion is out of scope of our research.

After the first evaluation and re-design of the original journey, citizens were asked for their experiences with public service delivery and their evaluation of our re-designed citizen journey. Again, the overall feedback was positive. More than half of the respondents (26) stated that they would not change the citizen journey and overall experienced the service process as depicted.

Most of those who did experience the service delivery process differently reported differences for the preparation phase and the result phase. Thus, we applied changes to both phases in the second re-design of the citizen journey. Based on the insights gained through the survey, the step to choose a channel in the preparation phase was made optional as for some services citizens reported to have no choice after all because the requested services are simply not provided electronically. For the result phase, we added the channel choice to this phase, because citizens can decide how they want to make inquiries or give feedback irrespective of the channel used in the phases one and two.

However, the most obvious and profound change resulting from the survey was the visual depiction of our journey. Nearly all surveyed citizens stated that they perceived the original visualization as complex and not easy to understand. As this aspect was also raised in the focus group interview, the design of the citizen journey was changed to the pathway shown in Fig. 1.

Discussion and Conclusion

This paper contributes a generic citizen journey that depicts the steps of public service delivery from the citizens' perspective. We developed the citizen journey for transactional public services based on a customer journey from the private sector. The citizen journey was assessed in two subsequent evaluations with public servants and citizens.

The results from the evaluations indicate the journey's general usefulness. Additionally, we used the feedback from the focus group and survey to improve the journey.

Our citizen journey provides implications for research and practice. Researchers benefit from our journey through a better understanding of the service delivery process and the different steps that could impact the citizens' experience. The journey can also be used to classify research endeavors and even trigger further research activities on those steps that are crucial for the citizen experience. For instance, the citizen journey can be used to identify how public administrations can design the service delivery process at the citizens' convenience. Additionally, through our citizen journey's derivation from a customer journey, researchers gain a better understanding of the differences between the private and public sectors and how they are reflected in citizen interactions.

Practitioners can use our citizen journey to design their services under specific consideration of their citizens' needs. It enables a more efficient co-design with citizens since a new citizen journey does not need to be developed from scratch for each service. Instead, our citizen journey can be reused for the various transactional services in a public administration. The journey serves as a basis for the design of artefacts that are relevant to its individual steps such as websites, apps and forms. The citizen journey is not only useful for service design but also during the actual service delivery. Citizens are often confused and do not know how public services work and what they need to do. Public administrations can use the citizen journey to explain how the delivery process for a certain service works. The citizen journey depicts the most relevant steps that need to be undertaken. Enriched with service-specific information, it could also yield information on which fees need to be paid, which documents need to be submitted, and who is responsible for the service. In consequence, we incorporated both stakeholder groups-public servants and citizens-into the evaluation of our citizen journey so it is constructed in a way that it becomes useful and understandable for public servants during service design and for citizens during service delivery.

Our work has also limitations and potential for future work. First, our citizen journey serves a general blueprint for public services. We are aware that our journey might abstract from some details and specific cases, for instance when it comes to the differences between the public and private sector. However, we did not aim for covering all specifics since we intended to provide a citizen journey that is applicable to a wide range of transactional services. Therefore, slide adaptions might be necessary in exceptional cases if a public administration applies the journey to its services due to different kinds of administrations and services. Second, our journey focuses only on transactional services and the citizen journey might look different for other kinds of services such as participatory services. Future work could design citizen journeys for other kinds of services. Third, researchers can extend the citizen journey to more advanced models of public service delivery such as the no-stop shop [START_REF] Scholta | From one-stop shop to no-stop shop: An e-government stage model[END_REF][START_REF] Scholta | The Long and Winding Road of Digital Public Services-One Next Step: Proactivity[END_REF] where the citizen does not perform any action until she or he receives the notification. Fourth, researchers can undertake further evaluations with more citizens and public servants.

Despite these limitations and ideas for future work, we believe that our citizen journey constitutes a further step towards more citizen-centric operations in public administrations.