At a Glance
There was no digital way for residents to report issues until the city introduced a free mobile application to their residents. After implementation, not only did service requests increase, but citizen engagement and happiness improved.
Problem Addressed
There was no digital way for residents to report issues. Residents had to call the city directly to report issues. Residents who did not call the city directly were left to deal with the problem without the city even being aware of the issue(s). Aside from accessing city services via the website, residents did not have the means to access services conveniently or digitally. To solve the problem, the city introduced a free mobile application to their residents. The application allows residents to report issues at any time (avail. 24hrs) as well as access city services from their smartphones. As a result of deploying the easy to use application, the number of service requests has gone up, resident-to-government interaction (civic engagement) has increased, and the city is receiving better, geo-tagged service request data.
Gulfport, MS used/is using Rock Solid to manage their citizen services through a single access point, native mobile app to address this/these challenge(s).
Solution(s) Used
Service requests now route to the appropriate departments and are managed directly from Cityworks which in turn will send notifications to the resident. For example, when the city is working on a service request, they update the status to In Progress, a mobile notification is sent to the resident via the free app, making them aware of the update. This bi-directional communication enhances resident satisfaction. As a bonus, city staff did not have to learn a new system to manage the service requests because of the Rock Solid-Cityworks integration.
Outcomes
- Number of service requests submitted to the city increased, equating to more resident-government interaction.
- The city saw a decrease in the number of calls received and an increase in the number of service requests being reported through the mobile application.
- Increase in sustainability and growth opportunity for the city of Gulfport, MS
Something Unique
The Gulfport Connect mobile application is the official and first city-wide application, introducing digitalization to the city.
Who Should Consider?
Agencies struggling to get a hold of their app sprawl or innovational agencies ready to combine citizen services into a single access experience.