Feb 05, 2015 By Kevin Paschuck

How Philly Innovates with Salesforce

in Cloud, Collaboration, Community Cloud, Featured, IT, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Customer Story

In our blog last week, Tim outlined the six major technology trends that are impacting relationships between citizens and the state/local governments that serve them. The rise in mobile/social popularity, frequency of apps, increasing number of connected products, growing data availability/abundance, and prevalence of customized experiences puts more emphasis on the trust gap, expectation gap, and innovation gap distancing citizens from their government.

But they also put emphasis on new opportunities.

As Tim also explained, each of these technology trends gives government the ability to apply innovation and transform their organization, connecting with citizens in a whole new way.

The city of Philadelphia is a prime example of a local government that harnessed these trends to transform their services, resulting in more satisfied citizens, while maximizing limited resources. They deployed the Salesforce Connected Cities solution to develop their 311 app. Philadelphia residents can log into the platform to submit service needs, such as request a permit, file a noise complaint, note new graffiti, and more—from their exact location at that moment—similar to checking in on Facebook. Integrated websites and mobile apps give citizens clear visibility of the status of their inquiry as it moves through the system.

The results:

1. City services are more accessible

As Rosetta Lue, Chief Customer Service officer for the city, notes across Philadelphia, there are about, “20-30% of folks who do not have access to a computer in their household. But one thing we saw was that everyone had access to a smartphone. So out of that came this fantastic mobile app.” Today’s mobile and social technologies make it possible for city organizations to be always on in a user-friendly, efficient way. Enabling mobile tools like Philly did gives citizens the option to engage in the moment and with each other. Social technology gives their city the ability to capture in the moment comments, as well as any relevant context, better scaling resources and budget.

2. City resources are more responsive

More frequent, simpler communications with greater visibility to context helps city services respond faster, with more accuracy. This fosters trust among citizens, as they begin to see the local government as one who delivers on the community’s top priorities. With more trust comes a more emotional, loyal sense of pride for their home as opposed to a transactional one. Just ask any Eagles fan(atic).

3. City process is more evident

With always on, bidirectional communications comes inherent transparency, as agencies are empowered to easily share more detail, more updates, and more context surrounding their decision making. The fact that data is on a common, shared platform across all city departments also helps enable action; the city delivers data directly to “PhillyStat (an operational excellence group) so they can hold City Departments accountable for responding to the needs of Philadelphia residents in a timely manner.” (Philly311)

The City of Philadelphia has positioned themselves as an active part of the community itself, leveraging the latest technology to become a true thought leader not only for their city, but also for state/local agencies with similar missions.

Interested in more detail behind Philly’s story? The city is opening their doors for their first-ever Innovation Summit, where they will share more about the experiences, results, and impacts of partnering with Salesforce to transform the city into a service and experience oriented government with a strong culture of innovation.

Speakers joining us at the event include: