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DENNIS C. ALBY | SIMON GILES
ELEVATING CITIZEN ENGAGEMENTFUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMING THE WAY A CITY OPERATES
2 | Elevating Citizen Engagement
People today are more connected than they have ever been. Headline news, online shopping, paying bills, and conversations with friends are mere clicks or screen taps away. And yet, when it comes to community services and information, many people never contact their local governments. Recent research conducted by the Governing Institute shows that instead of being a sign of disinterest, this lack of engagement reflects the difficulties in adequately connecting with government in today’s digital world. If citizens found it easier to engage with government, would more of them interact with and support agencies to improve the quality of life in their communities?
With the right technology and innovative outreach, the answer is YES.
3 | Elevating Citizen Engagement
ALIGNING PERCEPTIONS, ADDRESSING CHALLENGESForward-looking governments recognize that technology can encourage greater citizen engagement. In response, many cities have set up call centers, web-based platforms and portals, or some combination of these strategies. But often, these efforts fall short. Many citizens do not utilize the services or even realize that they exist. A bad experience, such as difficulty navigating a site or being left on hold too long, can cause citizens to abandon the platform for good.
In all fairness, these efforts are positive steps forward. They just don’t fully align to citizens’ needs or expectations. What they need is a citizen engagement strategy that offers easy access and quick resolutions in an innovative, interactive and collaborative manner. To meet these expectations, many cities throughout North America have started employing a customer-centric, omnichannel integrated service request system that organizes data and facilitates through transparent communications between city staff and citizens.
Citizens rarely request services from government agencies
4 | Elevating Citizen Engagement
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES IMPROVE ACCESS
Bridging the Gap
Advanced technologies, such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), offer exciting opportunities for governments to enlist residents as partners in the community. One such example is the Accenture Citizen Engagement Solution. This innovative platform enables citizens to access and interact with services through a simple and intuitive application, which in turn increases citizen satisfaction. At the same time, it provides the city with improved capabilities to manage costs, reduce call center volumes and efficiently respond to customer requests.
The Governing Institute survey found that 40 percent of citizens want a one-stop service platform. Similarly, 41 percent of citizens want a feedback loop after engaging with their government. Imagine being able to go to a single access point—from anywhere at anytime—and report an issue or access the latest city news and updates. And add to that the option to receive automatic updates and feedback on service status. Not only do citizens get the chance to
satisfy their sense of civic duty, but they can also make sure that their government is listening.
By leveraging digital assistants and Salesforce Einstein, the Accenture Citizen Engagement Solution is powered to discover relevant insights, predict future outcomes, and proactively recommend best next steps and automate tasks— ultimately delivering a more personalized and predictive customer experience. AI and geolocation make user interaction simple and intuitive by allowing citizens to upload images of service issues, such as graffiti or potholes, directly to the city’s portal, which then captures the location, date and time of the reported problem and the type of solution needed. Advanced capabilities can even prioritize issues according to degrees of hazard or nuisance.
And the solution fits all lifestyles. So whether a citizen wants to communicate by phone, text message, email, social media or any combination of these methods, they are one step closer to a responsive interaction.
5 | Elevating Citizen Engagement
BETTER ENGAGEMENT BUILDS COMMUNITIESThe Accenture Citizen Engagement Solution allows a city to accelerate its deployment of citizen-centric services through streamlined processes, knowledge management, a robust integration framework, advanced case management, case analytics and an interactive community portal. Moreover, the existing functionality can be tailored using standard application extension features to best meet the specific requirements of a particular city - enabling faster implementation, cost savings and a customized, start-of-the-art solution.
This enhanced engagement takes civic service to new heights. By leveraging AI and serving citizens through a variety of channels, a city can increase its speed
of operation and produce a truly unique customer experience. This ensures citizens receive the city information they need, want and expect and gives them an incentive to be better citizens. After all, a community thrives when all share in its responsibilities.
With best-in-class technologies, rich features and functions and unparalleled industry capabilities, the Accenture Citizen Engagement Solution can improve community services, helping to make your city an even better place to live.
ABOUT ACCENTUREAccenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help organizations improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders.
As the world’s largest Salesforce practice, Accenture offers full end-to-end cloud application consulting capabilities and 3 times more certified professionals than any other company. Accenture is helping clients take advantage of the latest Salesforce technologies to achieve the transformation needed to compete in a cloud first, digital world. With deep technology and industry skills and decades of experience with the world’s leading businesses and governments, Accenture is a leading Salesforce global alliance partner.
With approximately 411,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com/publicservice or learn more about our Salesforce partnership at www.accenture.com/salesforce.com.
NOTE1 Governing Institute. 2017. “Civic Engagement Citizen Survey”
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TO LEARN MORE, PLEASE CONTACT:
Dennis C. Alby Director Accenture Cloud 1st Technology [email protected]
Simon GilesGlobal Cities Lead Accenture Public Service [email protected]
