The world today is all about modernizing. The expectation that's being driven by residents, business owners, and other key stakeholders, is to develop a digital channel to city hall. Evolve or die is the tone for businesses, and while your government may not experience this level of citizen satisfaction deterioration, failure to start the process towards moving to a connected digital channel will pose significant challenges, for residents, staff, and leadership in the future if it's not already.
While consumer focused businesses have led the way, local government has been hampered by legacy processes, disparate systems, and siloed technology. The movement now should be to find integrated and connected technologies that make it easier for you to complete your tasks while giving your residents more control over the way they conduct business with your city.
Why is now the time?
Civic leaders I work with across the country ask this question often and in many different ways. The answers are different for each agency but the core remains the same; your residents expect a digital channel to city hall and it will reduce staff burden and stress. Connecting public-facing technology to your back office makes it much easier for residents to self-serve and complete payments, forms, and other tasks, just as they would when interacting with Amazon for example. This ability not only enhances resident satisfaction, but also promotes efficiency within city hall and beyond by reducing the time it takes to process requests and transactions, and to communicate with residents. At the same time it opens up opportunities to provide a higher level of service for people who have more complex needs that are best addressed in-person.
In other words, it makes residents happier and saves staff precious time.
Using a time-saving, operational toolkit like gWorks' FrontDesk, you seamlessly connect the back office to resident-facing technology. FrontDesk eliminates the need for staff to do duplicate work while making the citizen engagement experience much simpler and more enjoyable for your residents. Digitizing billing and payments, moving PDF forms online, easy access to agendas and minutes, an organized city website, and an integrated communication tool gives your city the power to drive more digital adoption with minimal effort.
Will my residents use this technology?
Simply put, YES! One of the most common concerns we hear is "I don't think my residents will use this technology". Data from our FrontDesk clients shows that this is not the case. gWorks has nearly 38,000 residents using FrontDesk, and since August of 2021 that has increased by over 500%! In fact, 40% of our FrontDesk customers have expanded their user base at least once, and 20% have expanded multiple times. The beauty of FrontDesk is you can start small and grow as the demand from your public users grows, so the risk is marginalized while giving you the ability to serve residents who prefer a digital channel.
The future for connected technology at gWorks is bright and will only become more powerful as we move forward with our development of gWorks Cloud. Connect with one of our experts today to find out how gWorks Cloud can help you, your staff and your citizens enjoy a simpler and more satisfying local government experience!
