Yuma County - At Your Service - Website becomes Customer Service Portal

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

County governments are uniquely challenged to develop their “brands” and bring personalized services to the large areas they serve. But Yuma County, Arizona, which covers 5,522 square miles and includes two military bases, was determined to keep pace with the expectations of its fast-growing, vibrant community by turning rebuilding its old website into a customer service center to fill the gap of engaging customers. Yuma County website research showed that people want to do their government business online. They want to get in and get out as quickly as possible and the old site wasn’t satisfying that need. Analytics installed took a closer look at the performance of Yuma County’s existing website and produced heat maps, which revealed that 90 percent of site visitors ended up viewing just 10 percent of the content. Further research revealed this metric is constant among most government websites across the nation. Local government agency websites traditionally have served as online repositories of information for residents and a powerful first impression for visitors. But the Yuma County Team assembled dared to think bigger. They wanted to develop Yuma’s new website as a customer service center. The team developed a “Walmart” approach to administering the rebuild. The mega store is similar to a customer using a government website. The main door is like the homepage. Department signs hanging from the store’s ceiling are like webpage icons that indicate where various services can be found. And, if you are unsure or in a hurry, the Walmart greeter at the entrance is there to offer personal assistance. That’s where online chat comes in. Every page of the website features the “On¬line Help Cen¬ter” overlay on the right of every page and at the bottom on mobile. The chat function is supported by county em-ploy¬ees dur¬ing nor¬mal busi¬ness hours and can re¬lay mes¬sages during off hours. Further, the home page and every department/agency home page features widgets focusing users to the TOP 10-20% requested content from those areas.