Transforming the online municipal experience
Kitchener’s new self-service portal is a big hit with residents
Melissa Bowman’s story of becoming a Kitchener resident is like many others. “I moved here to go to university and never went back home,” she remembered. “We used to come here when I was a kid, actually. I think I loved the place when I was young but fell in love as I got to know it even more as a student.”
She’s called Kitchener home for 20 years now and is heavily involved in her community, enjoying city events, volunteering for local organizations, and staying up to date on municipal affairs.
Like any resident, the first place she checks for information about city programs and services is the city’s website. “There’s so much good information that’s out there, but if people can’t find it then what’s the point?”
This past spring, the City of Kitchener transformed how residents can access information about city services with a new online experience called MyKitchener.
Project Background
MyKitchener is an online portal that allows residents to access the programs and services that they want to see in one convenient place. The new website offers:
- improved usability, including easy-to-find content and enhanced search and navigation;
- a customized experience based on navigation history; and
- a voice- or text-powered search function.
Staff worked to build a new information architecture for the website, reaching from the top-level navigation to on-page headings and content. The website is written in plain language, making it easier for any resident to find what they are looking for and understand the content.
The portal is a central place for residents to access information that’s relevant to them based on their address. Users can customize their dashboard with up to 20 different widgets for:
- checking tax and utility account balances;
- paying bills and parking tickets;
- booking a golf tee time;
- checking swim schedules at their favourite pool;
- seeing school bus route cancellations;
- checking roads that are closed in their neighbourhood;
- finding special events happening close to them; and
- much more.
The goal of MyKitchener is an improved online experience for everyone who visits the website and interacts with the city’s services online.
“It’s been a game-changer. The website previously was a challenge to find specifically what I was looking for,” Bowman said. “I had to bookmark a lot of pages because I would go there frequently but couldn’t easily use the search bar. This has changed things for me. I have my portal customized with the widgets that I use most often.”
Bowman’s experience isn’t unique. Almost 4,000 residents created their own portal account in the first month after launch. Seventy-three percent of users say they had a satisfying experience using the portal and found it easy to use. Seventy-five percent had a satisfying experience with the new website.
The combination of the website and portal has allowed the city to better deliver information to residents. Page views are up almost seven percent and sessions have increased five percent over the same time in 2020.
The online transformation will allow the city to reduce operating costs over time. About a hundred thousand dollars will be saved annually with this custom-build solution versus an out-of-the-box solution. The capital costs of developing MyKitchener will be recouped through operating savings in less than three years.
The flexibility of a platform like this also means improvements over time. Residents can expect even more services in the portal. Future phases will likely include widgets for building permits and service outages like gas and water. As new data sets and software platforms are available at the city, they can be integrated with the portal to continue to create additional functionality.
“This feels much more simple and easier to access information that I need,” said Bowman.
Three Takeaways for Municipalities
MyKitchener took several years to create, as staff wanted to deliver the right online service that met the needs of the community. Like everything else, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench into how staff worked in the final stages of the project. But, at the same time, it highlighted an even greater need for fast, reliable, and convenient online customer service.
Municipalities thinking about providing this kind of online self-service should consider the following principles.
1. A team effort
A web transformation of this scope, no matter the size of the municipality, is going to take time and teamwork.
After MyKitchener got corporate buy-in in its early stages, a diverse team was assembled to bring the idea to life. The project team consisted of members from corporate communications, corporate customer service, and technology and innovation services. As a two-tiered government system, the City of Kitchener also worked with the Region of Waterloo to include accurate data for services that are looked after at the regional level.
The team took inventory of existing software systems used within the city and assessed the feasibility of creating a centralized dashboard where citizens could access all of this information in one, central place. This concept eventually became what is now known as the MyKitchener portal.
Staff also conducted significant research on website design and analytics and used common experiences like Facebook and Amazon to shape the vision for the city’s corporate website.
2. Engage residents
Discussions about the type of online customer experience the city wanted to deliver began in 2017. Through engagement, staff recognized a recurring theme and identified a need to make information and services more accessible online.
During a customer service review in 2018, staff heard that residents prefer to interact with the city online and that they would prefer to do it in one place – seventy percent of residents reported that the services they wanted were not available online. The development of an online customer service portal became a recommendation from the review and later a priority within the city’s strategic plan.
More than 200 residents were engaged through in-person feedback sessions (before the pandemic), online surveys, and one-on-one virtual sessions. The project team checked in with residents at every stage of the project.
The result: a platform for residents, by residents.
3. Find the right partner
The City of Kitchener worked with a well-known website vendor with a solid track record to build this customized solution.
Website Redesign Scalable for other Municipalities
This project is scalable for other municipalities, regardless of size, because the “widgets” within the dashboard are stand alone and can be added or removed based on what services a municipality offers. For example, if they don’t offer the ability to pay parking tickets online, that widget wouldn’t be developed. MW
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Nicole Amaral is the Manager of Creative Services and Digital Media at the City of Kitchener.
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