Bozeman, MT NEW 311/CRM Interface Expedites Public Requests
Bozeman, Montana’s City Manager, Jeff Mihelich, doesn't settle for status quo. Mihelich wanted to guarantee that new inquiries coming in from citizens are not dropped or missed by city staff and were responded to in a timely manner. The process to date had been receiving email requests and forwarding them along or receiving messages on the phone and transcribing them to email. The agency did not have a good system for forwarding all requests to proper departments or following up with citizens making the request.
“More than a vendor, our Implementation Manager Paige has become a trusted member of our team.”
Image is courtesy of the City of Bozeman.
The Software Selection Process
The search for 311/CRM software was led by Bozeman’s communications coordinator and IT Director. Bozeman decided not to issue an RFP, instead sourcing for software on their own. A handful of platforms were identified and narrowed down to two for demonstrations of the product. Bozeman was blown away with Comcate’s robust system. Key items that were important to stakeholders included a public comment tool, communications, and community engagement. The budget for this new software was allocated as a general fund item out of the city manager budget.
How is success measured for this new 311/CRM software?
Bozeman is currently in the process of updating the city website and has only done a soft launch of Comcate. The sheer volume of citizens who have found comcate software during soft launch in an organic way speaks volumes. Ultimately, the plan is to shut down the old method once Bozeman has migrated most users to Comcate. When the old method is fully shut down, that’s when the city has fully reached success.
Favorite Features
Comcate’s FAQ solution has changed the way Bozeman delivers information and responds to citizen requests as a whole by making answers to frequently asked questions publicly available. Bozeman is taking a proactive approach to citizen engagement by putting information out to citizens vs a reactive approach of having citizens come to the agency. This has provided more operational transparency to the public. Another popular feature with the team is the GIS maps which allows requests to be visualized.
How was the Implementation Process?
Bozeman was very impressed with the speed of deployment. Comcate laid out a clear schedule and made all deliverables clear. As soon as Bozeman had information to Comcate they moved onto the next step. It was really driven by Bozeman's timeline vs artificial limits on that timeline.
Additionally, Implementation Manager Paige was always available. Never had to wait a day, only a few hours. Paige was added to Bozeman’s Microsoft Teams and had an ongoing thread as if she were a member of the team. Paige also helped Bozeman get an engineer to do exports because in the state of Montana public comments need to be retained separately.
Why Choose Comcate?
If you want a broad scope of what's coming city wide with information being consolidated into a single interface, Comcate software is a must. Don't let requests drop off or go any longer without visibility and automated follow ups to citizens and staff.
Learn how Comcate can help make government delivery simple, and offer a modern digital experience to help you increase transparency, efficiency, and performance across your departments. If you have any questions about implementing our software, please schedule a meeting with our team, or call us directly at (415) 632-1248.