More residents than ever before are interacting with their local council via their smart phone devices.
In fact, five years ago, the Nielsen Australian Multi-Screen Report estimated 48 percent of Australians aged 16 years and over own a smartphone.
The time spent accessing mobile internet continues to grow from 3.5 hours to 4.2 hours per week, as reported in The Nielsen, Australian Online Consumer Report.
This increase in mobility continues to present a number of challenges and opportunities for local government to manage the ever-growing online interactions from members of the public.
More and more local residents are seeking to interact with their council online, with many seeking to download online applications as an easy method of providing their feedback to council.
While many residents continue to interact with council through traditional telephone and email contact, thousands of residents are moving to smart technology to get in touch and lodge requests with councils via an online app or a council’s website.
In 2014-15, Moreton Bay Regional Council reported a record number of local residents were interacting with council online via its mobile website and smartphone apps.
In 2013, Moreton Bay Regional Council launched its new MBRC Request smart phone and web apps. The customer request apps give residents the ability to report issues requiring the attention of council’s work teams with just a few swipes of a smartphone screen.
Residents using the native smartphone apps receive notification when their request is completed.
If a resident spots a pothole, a fallen tree or graffiti, they can report this quickly and easily by snapping a photo on their smartphone, tapping in a few details in and uploading it to council.
The Customer Request app does the rest. Through the use of web services details are loaded into council’s Land Information System to enable Customer Service staff to review or action as appropriate. If the request relates to council assets, the Customer Service request is then seamlessly converted into the Asset Management System and automatically forwarded to field staff as a work order.
Local residents are embracing the new app offering with both hands. Website visitation is on the up and up. Moreton Bay Regional Council’s website was viewed more than 2.5 million times in 2014-15 with 45 percent of those hits coming from smartphone or tablet devices.
It is important that council continues to look at new and improved ways that residents can interact with their council, while maintaining the highest standards of customer response.
An average of almost 30,000 of council’s customer service requests were received via Moreton Bay Regional Council’s website or smartphone app, MBRCRequest in 2014-15.
Moreton Bay Regional Council has also seen an increase in registrations for council’s MoretonAlert service, which issues the latest storm, flood and bushfire alerts to residents.
Almost 40,000 local residents have already subscribed to Moreton Bay Regional Council’s disaster warning service, and that number is only continuing to grow.
The MoretonAlert warning service offers free text, voice and email warning messages to local residents about a range of local events including severe weather events, flood warnings and planned burns.
A nice feature of MoretonAlert is the ability to geotag affected properties to target the message to those property owners.
Moreton Bay Regional Council will continue to streamline its web and smartphone offerings to provide easy ways for members of the public to provide their feedback to council.
