A personal touch
As local governments look for ways to improve customer service, some are including personalized messages to residents on tax statements, motor vehicle notes and water bills to create a positive image for the city or county. The documents can be viewed as brief “meetings” with constituents to deliver public service announcements and other information about new or expanded government services.
Personalizing bills and other documents, however, can be complex, involving technology issues like incompatible legacy systems, non-integrated content sources and databases, and uncoordinated delivery channels. Some local agencies are resolving those issues with software that pulls information from disparate systems and merges it into one document to reduce development, operations and customer-care costs.
Personalized documents make information clear and easy to understand because they include only messages that are relevant to the recipient. They can be written in the resident’s primary language and tailored to constituent profiles. For example, a family with young children has different interests than empty-nesters, young professionals and new homeowners. White space on documents can be used to promote services the resident has not used before, such as green power purchasing programs or recreational classes.
The targeted messages can draw on a range of background information already stored in government databases. To supplement them, local agencies may send out surveys and questionnaires. Some agencies are using questions on the back of the remittance to accumulate residents’ profile information, increase the response rate and save on postage by combining uses in one mailer. The questions might include the residents’ preferred language and which government services they would like to learn more about. In collecting the information, agencies should be aware of privacy policies and clearly communicate to residents that the information is intended to better serve them.
By incorporating marketing promotions directly on bills or other correspondence, local governments can reduce printing and mailing costs by sending out one set of documents instead of two. They can further reduce costs by consolidating correspondence for several members of a household into one envelope, offering electronic bills by e-mail, and deleting information from statements that recipients say they no longer care about. For example, Baltimore Gas & Electric found that deleting some information from its statements reduced paper output by 7 million sheets per year and saved $297,000 annually in printing and mailing costs.
Constituents’ expectations for customer service are rising, and cities and counties are beginning to take advantage of the regular contact they have with residents to be more responsive, helpful and informative. Every communication with a resident is an opportunity to improve service and create a positive image for the city or county, and personalized documents can help accomplish that.
The author is vice president of government practice for Lexington, Ky.-based Exstream Software.
