Top Five Ways to Harness Technology-Focused Citizen Experience

How to utilize electronic plan review technology to create thriving communities built on citizen satisfaction 

When delivering services to citizens, government agencies want to ensure their citizens are overjoyed by the experience they receive, creating a community that is thriving. However, this is often a goal rather than reality, plagued with services built on legacy software, siloed systems, or even paper. 

Today’s digital-savvy citizens demand more. Here, we will explore five ways in which electronic plan review can help meet applicant expectations and work towards better citizen experiences. 

What do citizens expect? 

To truly understand what your goal should be, jurisdictions should first consider what their community expects. Where are the limitations in your agency? What slows down the process? Where are the frustrations for the applicant?

Efficiency, speed, accountability, honesty, responsiveness, support, and communication are important to citizens when it comes to their permit needs, but conducting a review is critical to clarify goals specific to your jurisdiction. 

Creating this positive customer experience will enable you to build trust and engagement with applicants, focusing on both the quality of the plan review services provided, as well as the overall experience of accessing those services. 

What role does ePlan review play in citizen experience? 

Electronic plan review can help improve the citizen experience by streamlining the review process and improving communication between the agency and the applicant. Here are our top five ways to harness ePlan review citizen experience benefits: 

1. Faster Permit Turnaround Time

Electronic plan review software digitalizes the plan review ensuring efficiency from the time the plan is submitted to permit approval. From the collaboration and circulation of documents, standard comment library, to compare and overlay to see changes between cycles – projects can be approved quickly, so citizens can progress with their construction, saving time and money. 

2. Improve Collaboration and Applicant Communication

One of the biggest impacts on citizens experience seems to be the easiest to solve in today’s digital, highly-connected world – communication. This should be easy, clear and timely – and citizens expect this throughout the review cycle. Utilizing an electronic plan review to enhance communication, ensures that applicants have access to the real-time status of their permits and the ability to collaborate on required changes. 

3. Citizen Accessibility Made Easy 

Not all citizens have the ability to visit a government office to submit a permit – some have mobility issues, work long hours, or live far away. Electronic plan review task away the burden by enabling them to do it from any location, online. Provided they have an internet connection, online submission can be easy and increase accessibility. 

4. Remove Silos in your Plan Review 

If systems are not connected, they more often than not, create data silos. These pockets of knowledge create barriers for a simple citizen service. Looking for updates in multiple systems, or having to upload/download, or even ensuring versioning is correct – all adds time to plan review tasks and the current status or changes required is not always easy to identify. 

5. Improved Consistency and Accuracy 

Support the consistency and repeatability of plan review with electronic plan review software so required changes or questions are not overlooked, of items are identified if added in subsequent review cycles. This ensures the safety and quality of citizen projects, timely responses and a happier applicant. 

Creating a user-friendly citizen experience is not revolutionary – removing siloed systems so data can easily be shared and accessed, ensuring plan review tasks are completed efficiently is all achievable today. Providing that positive experience to your citizens is just an Avolve call away.