Today, Accela acquired Government Outreach, a leading provider of citizen relationship management software. This ushers in a new era for Accela and our customers as we further strengthen our Civic Platform with citizen-facing offerings to help governments of all sizes better connect and engage with their citizens. We are thrilled to welcome Government Outreach customers to the Accela family. Government Outreach will be rebranded as Accela Citizen Relationship Management, and we will offer the solution to existing and new Accela customers.
At Accela, we believe that engagement makes all the difference. Citizens want engagement with their government to be simple and streamlined. They increasingly want to connect with their government like they do with other organizations—on their own time through digital and mobile, in addition to over the phone and in person. In order to transform the citizen experience in their communities, agencies need to embrace technology that bridges the gap between government and citizen and makes engagement easy.
Truly connected governments are the future. Two-way communication means citizens can report a pothole through their mobile app—along with a photo and geolocation of the issue they are reporting—and can see the issue through to resolution. Connected governments enable citizens to sign up for services, find information about the city or contact their elected official on a single web portal.
While connected governments are the future for many, this notion is already being embraced in cities such as Anaheim, California, which made customer service a priority to be more responsive to citizen needs. The City now resolves most citizen requests within 24 hours and agency staff can easily track and resolve these requests on their end. Queen Creek, Arizona, also wanted to better address citizen requests, as well as enable them to self-serve. More than 89 percent of service requests now come in through the web or mobile devices, and only 1 in 10 views of the City’s Knowledge Base results in a service request submission. Residents are able to get answers to their questions without having to call staff 90 percent of the time. These are just two examples of cities that are embracing the notion of connected government to engage their communities.
Citizen relationship management software helps agencies manage all aspects of how they capture, analyze and answer citizen-driven requests or inquiries. It provides citizens with a centralized location to find general information about policies, practices and procedures and answers to common questions. The information is organized and delivered in the context of what the citizen wants or needs to do—not oriented around a transaction, process or department. And it is available on citizens’ terms when and where they want to interact.
Accela Citizen Relationship Management includes:
- Turnkey implementation with extensive use of best practices for grouping and organization, along with standard forms and reports
- A configurable mobile app and website functionality based on agency and community needs
- An extensive and configurable Knowledge Base to enable self-service for citizens
- Citizen visibility into issue reporting and status updates, as well as a single location to find community information, council members and department contacts, social media and more
With Accela Citizen Relationship Management, services, information and engagement tools are available on a city’s dedicated app and website. Citizens can communicate when and how they want 24/7, through the mobile app, website and phone, as well as in person. And, citizens become partners in improving their communities. This makes agencies more efficient, and issues are fixed more quickly.
Accela continues to extend the capabilities of the Civic Platform, and bringing our customers the capabilities to manage interactions and relationships with all of their constituents is a key priority for us. To learn how your community can better engage with your citizens, visit our website.
