Streamline your customer service by enhancing your email inbox

You're an innovative local government—which means you're probably in the process of implementing technology to help constituents help themselves. An ERP system, a front-end service portal, a CRM to manage customers. These are steps forward to deliver next-generation digital services smoother. We've talked to municipalities like yours across the country, and have found that these large tech implementations take a lot of time and resources. While service portals and CRMs digitize services, they do not make customer’s lives any easier.

Our customers that implemented systems like Energov, CityWorks, and OpenCounter still spend significant staff time answering customer inquiries by phone and email. We’ve heard frontline staff spend upwards of 80+% of their day helping customers. Expending staff time and resources on tasks keeps them from spending time on their higher value responsibilities.

So, here's why using technology to streamline customer service is a no-brainer...even if you're implementing a self-service front-end portal.

Self-service portals direct customers to a government staff email inbox and/or phone number for questions and concerns. These portals don't streamline customer service, and according to Erik Caldwell, former Economic Development Director for San Diego, "digitizing services means increasing influx in digital inquiries."

Tim Maloney from Wake County, NC adds more color to this phenomenon, “Since we’ve gone online with EnerGov, our walk-ins have decreased drastically. However, it has led to a large increase in our phone and email volumes.”

Your department serves everyone--from the tech savvy who can easily navigate online portals to those who are used to calling or emailing a person to get information or status updates. Email is a universally understood tool, so enhancing your inbox to better service your customers is a complete and considerate solution to increasing digital inquiries. 

We know you are strapped for time to look for and implement new solutions. But, streamlining customer service right within your email is within reach and will take an hour tops. Implementation is possible, and in fact, easy. How?

Create blocks of information your staff sends customers often to respond to varying customer inquiries. These blocks can be instructions on how to navigate a form or site, links to forms they need to complete, checklists they need to have done before progressing, status updates on permits and inspections, or invoicing information they need to complete a payment. These blocks of information act as templates that your staff can rely on to speed up their response time to customers.

These templates standardize customer-facing communications across your team and ensure that your customers are always receiving robust, clear, and sufficient information when accessing your services.

Use these templates as you respond to customer inquiries by phone or email.

Track frequently occurring customer bottlenecks so that your department can allocate resources, adapt customer facing communications to meet changing customer needs.

In fact, we've created banks of best practice, highly effective blocks of information, our customers from Building Departments to HR Departments have used to streamline their customer service. Hit this link and fill out a quick 1 minute survey if you want access to these templates.