Taking in requests from citizens can be difficult for a city government. Requests can vary in type and urgency, and assessing each request manually would take substantial time investment. Automating support requests requires careful attention to organizing your tools to ensure that people receive the correct information. Citizens also need to be updated as their issues are resolved. A solution like this requires advanced tools that won’t swamp the city officials in training and complicated technical requirements.
Usually, support requests will require municipal resources. However, this is not always the case. Support requests take many forms, and no matter the form the city must be able to respond. Numerous varied apps or solutions can be applied to make a patchwork request system, but this ultimately does little to help staff or citizens, as things frequently tend to fall into gaps between solutions.
Now, these solutions get the job done. But they have limitations too. One of the primary limitations is that if one tool goes down or requires maintenance, whole municipal systems can become unavailable. A single, centralized solution that can manage these requests and ensure that the correct responder handles each case is ideal. Setting something like that up probably sounds complicated and technical.
We have a better solution, however, that doesn’t require technical knowledge or long training periods. Using a SimplyCast use case, users can learn as necessary and rely on pre-built solutions to solve specific problems one at a time until they have a comprehensive, multi-case platform built.
To mitigate the issues that normally come with building something like this, a digital solution should be adopted so the support request process can operate seamlessly and without having to handshake with other applications. For that purpose, you’ll need:
- A solid strategy that covers every aspect of support requests
- A way to route requests to different municipal departments digitally
- A system that notifies citizens when their request has been attended to
In this blog, we are presenting a four-step strategy to set up an automated city support request solution that allows hundreds of citizens to share their concerns and request maintenance and other support issues.
Step 1: Allowing Requests
In this step, the city can provide citizens with the means to submit a request. This can be done with an online form that can be accessed online or by scanning physical QR codes. When the form is filled out, automation tools will review the criteria provided and send the task to the correct department. Using decisions to parse specific information and match a request to the correct handler ensures that issues can be resolved quickly.
Step 2: Assigning Requests
Once automation tools have sorted out where a request should go, an email will be automatically sent to the handler, and a task will be created for them in the system. This allows for several things: First, it allows for quick assignment of tasks, and ensures that the handling staff member can route the task appropriately. Second, it provides a written, organized record of how many issues a given handler has on their plate to alert the city to staffing shortages or bottlenecks. Finally, it starts a workflow that will notify the submitting citizen when the task has been resolved and offer them ways to follow-up if their issue has not been cleared properly.
Step 3: Follow-up and Reporting
When a task is completed, depending on the severity of the issue, the submitting citizen will either receive an automated completion notice or a manual follow-up. Even manual follow-up messages can be sent through the platform, ensuring that reports are present for all communication with citizens. These reports can then be used to ensure quality of service, review issues, and assess how citizens engage with messages.
What’s Next?
To implement this solution, you’ll need the right digital tools to ensure that all the steps in this strategy are executed perfectly. For that, you will need a digital form builder, email marketing software, SMS marketing software, voice broadcasting software, a CRM, and most importantly, automation tools to help sort requests and assign handlers. These applications should work together seamlessly, and issues should not result in a loss of service unless the entire solution is unavailable. Furthermore, you need to be able to expand your services at a moment’s notice to deal with unforeseen circumstances. You also want to be able to add new capabilities without too much trouble.
This might seem like a lot of work, especially if you feel like you need to build something in-house. It can feel like an insurmountable task to achieve all these results on a timeline that often only includes a few years at a time.
Fortunately, SimplyCast anticipated the growing demand of a digital city support request solution and brings you a complete platform which is 100 percent ready to go. Using our internal resources, digital engagement tools and marketing automation technology, we have built a solution that can take care of every task involved in your city support request strategy. You can even expand this platform to help deal with other issues you may be facing in the future, only having to learn as much at one time as you can manage.
Why SimplyCast?
The SimplyCast platform is a no-code platform that allows anyone to build and edit their solution. As a result, this solution is fully customizable, it can be tweaked or altered to meet the exact needs of every institution.
Don’t worry about scalability and security! SimplyCast is an ISO 27001:2013-certified company with data centers in the USA and Canada. This means we can assure you that your confidential data is safe on our secure server and the messages you transmit are completely encrypted. Our platform has the capacity to send 100,000+ messages every hour and allows 10,000+ concurrent sessions. We can also acquire additional gateways and servers if you need them.
Most importantly, we have a 99.5% minimum uptime. With our solution, you can have peace of mind.
Interested?
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Simply request a demo by clicking the button below and let us show you how our solution can help you manage your Course information solution more efficiently.
Let us know you’re looking at UC0000191 City Support Requests. We can further help you develop automated city support features to improve quality of life. Together we can build cities that are more efficient and helpful to everyone that lives in them.
