The Road to FastTrackGovernment

Government Advances in Citizen Services

2009-07-23T13:21:00.000-07:00

FastTrackGov and the MH Best Practices Institute conducted an on-line survey in an effort to assess the level at which organizations are implementing collaborative strategies to improve efficiency and transparency while providing timely and relevant information to their citizens.

Survey Conclusions
We found that two-thirds of our respondents provide some on-line citizen services, with the most popular being Citizen Requests/Complaint Tracking. Over one-half of the organizations have a Citizen Request/Complaint Tracking portal in operation currently, with another one-third planning to implement one in the future.

Of the organizations that provide for on-line submittal, parks and recreation and pet licensing also provided for on-line payments in all cases. Permitting and occupational and business licenses allowed on-line payments in approximately one-third of the organizations allowing on-line submittal.
While on-line citizen services are important to these organizations, very few have implementation projects in progress currently and only approximately ten percent have plans to implement on-line citizen services in the next twelve months. The primary obstacle sited is a lack of budget. When budget dollars are tightened new technologies are often the first to be cut.
The best way around this is to find technologies with proven return on investment by looking to other organizations to see what they are doing.
Many are also looking into new, subscription-based offerings to provide the technological advantage without requiring the capital investment necessary to run traditional software applications.

Detailed Survey Findings

The majority of respondents provide their citizens with on-line citizen services.

Do you currently provide your citizens with a portal on your website through which they can access on-line services and/or complete on-line transactions?

Citizen requests and pet licensing are the most popular on-line services at 89% and 58% respectively with building permits and business licensing each generating significant visibility with approximately 50% of organizations currently providing these on-line.

Indicate categories for which you currently provide on-line accessible application and/or renewal forms.

Nearly two-thirds of citizen requests and complaints can be submitted on-line at respondent organizations. While the respondents providing parks and recreation provided for approximately 40% of those requests to be handled on-line.

Indicate categories for which forms can be completed and submitted on-line.

Of those organizations providing on-line form submittal, many also provided for on-line payments for certain services. For example, 100% of the parks and recreation requests and pet licenses submitted on-line provided for on-line payment.

Indicate categories for which on-line payments can be submitted along with completed on-line forms.

Over one-third of organizations responding to the survey currently provide some level of on-line citizen service. Of those organizations that do not currently provide on-line citizen services, over half said they had future plans for adding them.

Do you provide your citizens with a single, on-line location where they can request services, report problems, issue complaints, and complete citizen satisfaction surveys?

The current state of the economy is certainly reflected in the current lack of implementation projects and the absence of projects in the next twelve months. However, there is a general optimism that as Gov 2.0 becomes more prevalent and the return on investment of these projects is clearly identified, this technology will continue to be adopted.

Please indicate your current level of on-line service adoption for each of the areas listed.

Are Local Governments Using Twitter?

2009-07-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

While researching the myriad ways in which government entities communicate with the people they serve, we decided to see how many have turned to what we consider the newest social media storm, Twitter. Although Twitter has been in existence for a little over three years now, it has really started picking up steam. According to comScore in June 2009, Twitter surpassed all other social media outlets in unique visitor growth at 2,681%. While Facebook racked up a significantly larger increase in unique visitors, at these growth rates, Twitter is sure to catch up soon.

¹

We should note that we decided to narrow our research down to organizations within the United States for now. According to the USGS, there are 3,141 county and county equivalents in the United States and the District of Columbia; ² and the US Census Bureau has the number of incorporated places at 19,355, which includes cities, towns, and boroughs. Of these, 44 counties and 96 cities and towns are using Twitter. This does not include agencies such as visitors’ bureaus or emergency management departments, fire and police departments, or public officials. The goal of our research was to look specifically at the cities and counties that are using Twitter to communicate; to see how they are using it, the messages they are posting, and to try to understand their goals for using the social media site. We also checked the actual population from the 2000 census as we were conducting our research. In many cases this is much lower than current estimates, but we were most interested in determining whether there was any correlation between the size of the city and the likelihood that they were using social media. It is interesting to note that there is no noticeable relationship. Cities range from Remington, VA with a 2000 population of 624 to Philadelphia, PA with a 2000 population of 1,517,550.

Of the 96 cities we found using Twitter, two of them, San Francisco and Albuquerque, were using Twitter for 311 Service. The remainder post news feeds and city events. We post our list of weekly favorites every Friday with the Twitter #FollowFriday hashtag. Two of the cities, which are noted in the list below, have protected their updates. We found this to be a bit unusual given the transparency and sunshine laws effective in most states. Permission to view their updates was not requested, so we are not sure if it would have been granted or not.

We contacted a number of cities to determine whether they have established objectives for their use of Twitter. Lawrence, KS, @lawrenceks, responded that they do have established policies, which you can tell from their feed. It is consistent with links to the news archives of their web site; tweets about other Twitter accounts or web sites that may be of interest to locals, such as @TopekaMetroKDOT, @lawrencelibrary, and http://lawrencetransit.org/; and responses to citizen’s questions.

@SF311 came on-line on June 2, 2009. @fasttrackgov asked one of the Twitter support reps whether the SF311 site was integrated with any of their back office systems, or if there were any costs associated with the establishment of @SF311. The city responded that since Twitter is a free service, there have been no costs to the city of establishing the service and it is not integrated with the back office systems.

@cabq came on-line on June 26, 2009 with this feed: CABQ 311 is now available @cabq! DM or @ us your questions, requests for service, or pics of problems. We'll write back ASAP. http://www.cabq.gov/8:17 AM Jun 26th from web.

City Twitter Accounts by State
Alabama
@cityofmobile
@tuscaloosacity
Arizona
@PeoriaAZ
@MyMaricopa
@cityofchandler
Caifornia
@SF311 (San Francisco)
@cityoflancaster
@cityofsjc
@santaclarita
@SantaClaraCity
@cityofvacaville
@CityOfCommerce
@riversidecagov
@MissionViejoCA
Colorado
@cityofarvada
@bouldercolorado
@AuroraGov
Florida
@cityftmyers
@CityofSarasota
@cityofboynton
@FloridaCity
@CityofTamarac
@MiamiBeachNews
@CityofMiami
Georgia
@City_of_Atlanta
Idaho
@CityOfBoise
Illinois
@cityofurbana
@cityofgalesburg
@cityofStCharles
@NapervilleIL
@champaigncity
@CityofGeneva
Iowa
@cityofames
@CityofCRiowa
@iowacity
Kansas
@KBCityHall (Tonganoxie, KS)
@CityOfTopeka
@lawrenceks
Kentucky
@louisvillekygov
Maine
@portland_maine
Maryland
@TownofOceanCity
Michigan
@CityofEL
@A2GOV (Ann Arbor)
Minnesota
@EdinaMN
@MinnetonkaMN
@CityMinneapolis
@FalconHeights
Missouri
@RiversideMo
@CityofDesloge
Nevada
@VirginiaCity
New Mexico
@cabq (Albuquerque)
North Carolina
@BurlingtonNC
@Morrisville_NC
@CityofWS
@greensborocity
@GNC_CityInfo
@Hillsborough
North Dakota
@GrandForksCity
Ohio
@LakewoodOhio
@DublinOhio
Oklahoma
@OwassoCity
@CityofShawneeOK
@cityofokc
@CityofEdmond
@miamioklahoma
@cityoftulsagov
Oregon
@newportOR
Pennsylvania
@PhiladelphiaGov
Rhode Island
@NorthKingstown
South Carolina
@cityofaikensc
@NorthCharleston
South Dakota
@CitySiouxFalls
Texas
@CityofMcAllen
@cityofplanotxpr
@DallasTX
@roundrocknews
@cityofmanor
@CityofSanMarcos
@KilleenWeb
@desototx
@Lancaster_TX
@HuttoTX
@manveltx
@CedarParkTX
@WataugaTX
@SugarLandtxgov (Protected)
Virginia
@ChesapeakeGovt
@CityofVaBeach
@Blacksburg_Gov
@RemingtonTown
Washington
@Burien
@Lynnwood (Protected)
@CityofTacoma
@coaupdates (Auburn, WA)
Wisconsin
@CityofMadison
@CityofMilwaukee

As far as we could tell, none of the 44 counties we researched is using Twitter for 311 Service or dedicated two-way communication with their constituents. Many of the counties are using the site to post interesting information combined with news about the county. Road closings, construction projects, and crime topped the list for news. Arts and health/fitness activities topped the @fasttrackgov #FollowFriday favorites.

County Twitter Accounts by State
California
@AlamedaCounty
@SCCgov (Santa Clara County)
Colorado
@bouldercounty
Florida
@PBcounty
@MiamiDadeCounty
@seminolecounty
Georgia
@HenryCounty
@accgov
Illinois
@LakeCountyIL
Indiana
@allencountyinfo
@8GreatTowns (Hamilton County)
Kansas
@shawneecounty
Kentucky
@GarrardCountyKY
Maryland
@MontgomeryCoMD
Minnesota
@AnokaCounty
@cookcountymn
Nevada
@ClarkCountyNev
New Jersey
@bergencountynj
@MorrisCountyNJ
@atlantic_county
New York
@SchdyCountyNY
North Carolina
@MeckCounty
@GuilfordCounty
@CabarrusCounty
@SmokyMountainNC (Haywood)
@CatawbaCounty
@DurhamCounty
@AlamanceNC
Ohio
@FranklinCoOhio
@LorainCountyGov
Oregon
@MultCo
Pennsylvania
@DauphinCounty
South Carolina
@AikenCountyGov
Tennessee
@bedfordcountytn
Texas
@wilcogov
@hayscounty
@BexarCounty
Virginia
@ArlingtonVAWeb (County web site)
@ArlingtonVA
@fairfaxcounty
@ChesterfieldVa
@LoudounCoGovt
Washington
@kcnews
@PierceCo
@lewiscounty ³

The utilization of Twitter by more cities and counties for citizen communications and for 311 Service is certainly expected to be seen in the future. The explosion of Gov 2.0 has both positive and negative aspects. Positively, it provides innumerable ways to rapidly disseminate information, the ability for others to spread your message for you, and a low-cost medium for communicating. Negatively, you have no control over what is being said about you by others, whether it is good or bad. Governments can follow the lead of major corporations and monitor their “brand” by establishing their own Twitter account. This is a way of following what their constituents are saying and keeping their thumb on the pulse of the community. With the current fiscal crisis faced by many, a free service that can help you distribute information to your constituents, immediately find out what they are thinking, and converse with them (in transmissions limited to 140 characters or less) can be a very beneficial tool.

If your city or county has a Twitter account and it is not listed here, please tweet me @fasttrackgov.

¹ “Facebook Overtakes MySpace”, JUNE 18, 2009 http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007145
² Source: United States Geological Survey. URL: http://gnis.usgs.gov/
³ Many thanks to GovTwit, which is an excellent source of Twitter information regarding all things government. All of the organizations listed above are not listed in the GovTwit Directory. If you would like to be listed, please tweet @GovTwit.

Business Licensing, Permitting, Tax Collection Software for Government

2009-07-09T13:02:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Business Licensing, Permitting, Tax Collection Software for Government

View more presentations from FastTrackGov.

Customer Service – Communicating with Humans

2009-06-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

Recently, I read a blog on govloop.com lamenting the demise of great customer service. This prompted me to think about Web 2.0, and all the tools we have available to make customer service better while still giving it a “human touch.” Even when you may not actually be “speaking” to a human, you may still be able to communicate with one.

Online Chat

On-line chat has been around for a long time, and is becoming more and more prevalent as a mechanism for communication with customers, even for organizations outside of the technology realm. Companies, such as banks and investment firms, are also offering on-line chat. A few of the banks I saw were Chase Bank, Fifth Third Bank, and Bank of America. As governmental organizations offer more and more of their services online, "chatting" with citizens is going to continue to gain popularity.

There are some steadfast rules you must follow. First, you must be available during the hours you say you will be available. I saw a post that Bank of America’s on-line chat was off at 9:58 p.m., (EST), when it was supposed to be on until 11:00 p.m., (EST). Second, be prompt. Immediately greet the person to let them know you are there. Third, if you cannot resolve the issue, be very clear about what is going to happen next. Do not leave them hanging.

Myself, I prefer chat. The reason can be explained using the example of my AT&T smart phone. When I stepped off a flight in Kansas City, MO, and turned on my phone, it was locked up. Before I continue, let me preface my story by saying, by and large, I think AT&T has great customer support. I called AT&T and explained my issue to the technical support rep. He could not help me and transferred me to another rep, who then asked me to repeat my story. She also could not help me and transferred me again, and I had to repeat it a third time. When you use chat, there is no repeating of the story because it is all documented.

Twitter

Twitter is a social networking tool that allows people to communicate through the exchange of quick, frequent messages called "tweets" of 140 characters or less. Every day people find new uses for Twitter. I love the way it allows us to build relationships with, and get to know, real people that we would never have been introduced to without Twitter. Humans are social animals, but we are also very busy.

Twitter allows me to communicate and my true personality comes out. Enough of my inspiring plug for Twitter, after all, they are projected to have 12 million users by the end of this year. Now on to my real topic, and some creative ways organizations are using Twitter.

To my knowledge SF311, the City of San Francisco’s 311 Twitter connection is the first of its kind in local government.¹ They ask you to follow them and they will follow you back to allow direct messaging, but as far as I can tell, since they do use @replies, it is probably not really necessary unless you are concerned about privacy. The following is their Twitter account information as of posting.

• Name SF311
• Location San Francisco, CA
• Web http://sftwitter/....
• Bio Hey, we want to follow you as well. Go to http://bit.ly/70sZo
3,008 Following 2,817 Followers

Here is a sample of their tweets.

RobCorwin: Sent a dm to @SF311 about a sanitation issue and the city sent a crew out to resolve the problem w/i 2 hours. I was definitely impressed! 2 days ago from web

SF311: HowYouEco Thank you for contacting 311. Rate us:http://bit.ly/hYb01 ^RTabout 4 hours ago from CoTweet

HowYouEco: @SF311 possible to better monitor sprinklers in GGP + along Park Presidio/14th Ave? Lot of concrete getting watered.2:16 PM Jun 23rd from TweetDeck

HowYouEco: @SF311 can you add compost bins next to recycling & "trash" at Union Square? 2 days ago from TweetDeck

From what I could tell, the City is fairly prompt at responding to the tweets of citizens. While immediate replies are not necessary, I believe the @replies must be timely. The City should provide a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to citizens that lets them know when they can expect responses to tweets of varying degrees. Otherwise, I can see frustration building if they continue to look for replies that are not there. I can see the benefit of direct messaging in cases where issues are more severe and require a more rapid response.

There are many private sector companies using Twitter to communicate with their customers. When any business uses Twitter, you have the issue of spam. There is a fine line between providing a valuable service and information, and spamming. Typically, Twitter weeds out spammers naturally because followers drop off. In fact, in reading through the SF311 tweets, I saw a citizen complaint of spam because the City also tweets about City happenings on the account.

Many businesses troll Twitter in search of their name in order to seek out customer complaints, and issues, so they may address them. Some companies I have seen are Carnival Cruise Lines (carnivalcruise) and Jet Blue Airlines (jetblue). While Carnival’s tweets seemed to be more customer service related, Jet Blue’s seemed to be more like spam, in my opinion, but I can’t argue with 755,000 + followers for jetblue.

In conclusion, Twitter is becoming an excellent way to reach out to customers/citizens that was not there before. Smart companies and governmental entities are taking an organized and proactive approach to interaction with folks; rather than searching for issues after they have already damaged a relationship. The bottom line is communication is key and the more ways we can find to communicate, the better off we will all be.

Email

Email is good, because like chat, it allows me to document my problem so I do not have to repeat it, should it need to be passed up the support chain. However, like Twitter, email response times should be documented in the SLA so they are understood by citizens or customers.

Another problem with email is spam. There is so much unwanted email these days that sometimes “good” email is accidentally captured by spam filters and lost. We always laugh about the person who emails us then immediately picks up the phone and calls to ask, “Did you get my email?” That type paranoia is justified now more than ever. My mother always told me to start out assuming good intentions in every encounter. Therefore, if someone does not respond to my email, I assume they did not get it, not that they are ignoring me. They usually really are ignoring me, but I have trouble facing reality.

Telephone

This is obviously the best, most direct form of customer service. When you have qualified, courteous, and knowledgeable individuals at the phones, it is a win-win. Look at it like this, if I have picked up the phone, that means I am probably experiencing the problem right now. I would probably like help right now. It is quite refreshing to get a real person, on the other end that is there to talk me through my problem. Even if I do not have a problem, but maybe I just called to complain. It is still nice to have a person on the other end of the phone willing to really listen to me, and to make me feel better about whatever is bothering me.

I can tell you when the telephone does not work, and that is when you have discourteous, unprofessional, unfriendly, unknowledgeable, or uncaring people on the other end of the phone. In that case, you are better off using one of the non-human contact methods. Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated to make a point.

Automated Phone System

As we all know, the automated phone system can be quite frustrating. It is like the voice recognition on my mobile phone. When I try to call my mom who is programmed in my phone as “mom,” my phone comes back with “MODOT,” which it pronounces as “mahdot.” MODOT is the Missouri Department of Transportation. You never know when you will want to check road conditions. I do not think mom sounds anything like mahdot. The phone asks me to repeat, which I do, louder of course, and it comes back with mahdot. I then relent and type in “mom.”

My favorite phone systems are the ones that offer a whole bunch of options, with no press “0” if you want a human. I listen to them all, and none of them matches what I want to do. By the time I get to the end, I have to decide, but I cannot remember what the first options were, so I press “8” to listen to all of the options again. Finally, in desperation, I pick option “4,” not because that is what I want to do, but because I have to pick an option.

Discussion Boards

These are for the laziest of the lazy in customer support staff. Here is how one web designer described them: “Discussion boards are wonderful -- they can save tech support a lot of work! Because these boards are public, any customer of your company can answer the questions other customers might have, which frees up you and your employees to perform other work. Many Web hosting companies have implemented such a system, and have since found it useful for other purposes, for example: to post announcements regarding their service.” I get it, I can let my customers do my work for me…hmmm…

¹ As I was writing this, I received a follow back from CABQ – City of Albuquerque, New Mexico and saw the following tweet:

CABQ 311 is now available @cabq! DM or @ us your questions, requests for service, or pics of problems. We'll write back ASAP. http://www.cabq.gov/

This writer believes that many cities will soon follow.

2009-06-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

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