Enhancing Civic Engagement and Streamlining Communication in Reading, MA

Case Studies

Keys to Project:

Award-winning website / Streamline Request Management Process

Town:

Reading, MA

Population:

25,000

Products:

Municipal Websites 311 CRM Management

Challenge:

Modernize the website and 311 request management to meet resident expectations in the digital age and create more positive civic experiences.

Solution:

CivicPlus Municipal Websites and 311 CRM

Result:

The Municipality received a prestigious award for website excellence and turned a public relations challenge into an opportunity to build resident trust.

In the bustling community of Reading, Massachusetts, with a population of over 25,000, civic engagement and efficient communication prove vital. Historically known for its charming capes, ranches, and colonials, the town is located at the crossroads of interstates 93 and 95/128, just north of Boston. Reading’s residents take pride in their community, featuring excellent schools and green spaces, and show a willingness to speak up and take action to preserve it.

However, the new era of digital communication and engagement creates new expectations of local government and demands new solutions. Understanding that many of its community members were technology forward early adopters, Reading set out to build on their already strong relationship with the community beginning with a digital government transformation implementation of SeeClickFix 311 CRM. More recently, Reading set a goal to take its website to the next level in terms of usability and accessibility, and turned to CivicPlus®, to design a website to meet those needs.

CivicPlus met with the newly minted Director of Operations, Jayne Wellman, to discuss some of Reading’s prominent success stories. Wellman stepped into this new role after spending years as the Town’s Business Administrator, leading initiatives across departments and organizations.

Wellman always managed an extensive and diversified segment of work. Her office produces public-facing communications for the community, including the Reading website (readingma.gov), SeeClickFix 311 CRM for service requests, and the Town’s emergency contact system, for larger mass notifications to the community.

We produce all the town-side press releases with the exception of law enforcement, for which we use a vendor specializing in the space. We also create all digital media assets and quality assurance for most public facing communications. I am now responsible for procurement as well which is centralized for town and school department purchasing. I am also the risk manager working exclusively with our insurer to reduce risk across worker safety, property and casualty, liability, and more.”

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

Modernizing Request Management With Data and a Team-Based Approach

SeeClickFix 311 CRM is a solution that we've been working with for years, since there was a grant program called Community Commonwealth Connect. It’s a robust system; I'm a big evangelist for that product and it does have a lot of traction internally.

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

The original process and SeeClickFix implementation were before Wellman’s time with the Town, but she quickly became a champion of the new process and technology. “There was no really good way of tracking resident service requests except people calling on the phone. People don’t want to talk to people anymore. That’s inconvenient.” The Town decided to implement a digital request management software to allow easy, contactless interactions while also providing a positive experience for residents.

Wellman’s predecessor, Jane Kinsella, now the Director of the Department of Public Works, was the one who wrote the grant initially with the original intention of merely tracking requests. Reading’s usage has only expanded since implementation, Wellman elaborated.

Facebook has become, and at the time sort of was, a place where people could complain about whatever frustration they were experiencing. We wanted to pull those conversations away from social media and have them live in a place where there's still accountability; where people can see that accountability, where those service requests go exactly to the person who should be responsible for solving that problem, and that person also has the agency to resolve it.

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

Discussing reporting and analytics to improve efficiencies, Wellman noted, “Staff have the support and there’s supervision, the different team members will go in and say, ‘Hey I have a question about this, or I need help with this particular concern,’ then we can run reports against it. We don’t run reports to tie performance metrics to an individual employee. You can see trends as we’ve had staff changes and as we have newer employees come in and take over certain responsibilities. We have a new highway superintendent. He has taken so much ownership for it, he cleared backlogs of requests, when he first took over the position and he’s been all over it since.” With the program running on all cylinders, government officials like Wellman can speak about success stories or reoccurring issues of any kind, with first-hand knowledge and quantitative data.

Now, we get a request in from a community member that there’s a pothole in a section of town and he will have it fixed often by the end of the day. The request comes in. It goes directly to him, and he’ll get a crew out.

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

Another primary function of Wellman’s role that has been impacted positively by SeeClickFix 311 CRM is risk management. Wellman manages road defect claims, while the Public Works department executes repairs. Cross-functional employees are given personal login access, so Wellman is not solely responsible for monitoring and assigning tasks:

There’s a separation and an accountability piece. I can go into the system and say, ‘well, you did actually get three complaints about this particular pothole, and it hasn’t been repaired in three days, so we’re going to have to pay that claim.’ Although, in the last seven years, we’ve paid three pothole claims, three, because we assess it, and the repair is executed. People take it very personally, as part of their job, there’s a personal accountability piece, and it’s a shared sort of team approach, not a carrot and stick approach, if that makes sense. That works very well in running, yes, but our staff have a lot of respect for each other and work very well together and understand, okay, this is an issue that needs to be addressed quickly.

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

The Adaptability of Reading Employees and SeeClickFix 311 CRM Clear the Air

A particular success story that displayed Reading’s devotion to improving civic experiences happened late in the summer of 2022 when the Town experienced a breakdown in service with their waste management provider.

Wellman explained that their community has high but reasonable expectations: residents want their trash picked up on time, as scheduled.

The primary provider for trash collection was a company called JRM Hauling and Recycling for many years, without any newsworthy events, but when JRM was acquired by Republic Services, which had a different labor model, those reasonable expectations were no longer being met.

They (Republic) have a different collection model. With JRM, any bin out on the curb, they would take it and dump it. Most of Republic Services is automated trash collection, it’s different, so you put one person on a truck, and they can collect a route, but JRM would send three people out. When Republic acquired JRM and reduced staffing, they got extremely behind on their routes. This was incredibly relevant because in Reading pickups occur daily, Monday through Friday, across the neighborhoods. It's a couple of trucks every day and they were falling way behind, so much so that people weren’t getting their trash picked up at all. Those people took to social media to share their growing frustration, while the DPW was struggling to get our vendor to even answer the phone and respond to us.

It became clear that our vendor was not able to manage the total breakdown of their operation, so we decided to run all the trash pickup complaints through SeeClickFix. We made a push on social media saying, ‘Post on SeeClickFix, let us know your address, your regular pick-up time and potentially what neighborhood you are referencing if you don’t want to give us your specific address,’ so that we’d know where the trucks aren't going.

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

The Reading Team, led by Town Manager Fidel Maltez, began to take direct action in cleaning up the Town by personally going out and collecting trash with DPW equipment.

“We had massive dumpster containers brought in and we were doing roadside collection just to catch up on the backlog. After trying to just solve the problem for a while, we had to hold our vendor accountable and explain to our residents that, ‘This is a vendor issue, and we will be reconsidering this contract.,’ Making that change would have incurred considerable expense, but we had to challenge it.”

Further explaining how they managed the process in 2022 Wellman said, “We ran all of those complaints through SeeClickFix to see how we can easily triage them, plan how to address particular neighborhoods, which was a problem the mapping function on the SeeClickFix 311 CRM helped us solve easily. Importantly, residents could see the direct connection between the service requests and the subsequent pick-up, and that became part of the discussion in other social media spaces – that SCF worked to solve the problem, and then more people used it. That was critical, it was weeks of dealing with this, and many of us felt like it may never end, but again, everybody has such a good team-based approach.”

For Wellman, the goal will always be to work transparently with Reading’s staff and residents and meet whatever challenges arise, with the confidence that her community and colleagues will work as a team to overcome them. “It’s just a great town and having those tools at our fingers allows us to pivot to address any problem. SeeClickFix has been instrumental.”

Previous Pain Points:

Diverse communication needs: With a myriad of departments and services, Reading struggled to maintain consistent and efficient communication across its various functions. The town needed a solution to streamline communications, both internally and externally.
Negative social media impact: Residents often resorted to social media to voice their complaints and concerns, leading to an influx of negative conversations and backlash. The town sought to direct these interactions towards a more structured and accountable platform.
Inefficient service requests: Managing service requests, such as pothole repairs, was cumbersome and time-consuming. This inefficiency led to a delay in addressing residents’ needs.

Solution

SeeClickFix 311 CRM: This system allowed residents to report issues such as potholes and litter directly to the relevant departments, ensuring quick and efficient responses.

Results

Efficient service requests: SeeClickFix 311 CRM enabled residents to report issues directly, leading to quicker resolution times. The Town’s response was more efficient, reducing frustration and improving satisfaction among residents.
With the infrastructure in place to streamline workflows and processes, SeeClickFix 311 CRM gives staff members the added time to focus on excellence and the opportunity to be recognized as the local heroes they are, like Reading Assistant Public Works Director, Christopher Cole, who won a prestigious national award earlier this year.

Designing an Award-Winning Municipal Website

In January 2023, Reading, Massachusetts was awarded the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s (MMA) Website of the Year award for its size community.

Before we started the design process with CivicPlus, the Reading Select Board was really interested in the project, they didn't like the old website and they kept saying that we weren't putting information out and it was really a case of, Town staff is working with an older website, the functionality is a little bit worse and not up to date, so everything is looking stale. I convinced the Town Manager, and we were able to get started.

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

When Wellman sat down with the inter-organizational website project team made up of both CivicPlus and Reading stakeholders, she already had a goal in mind.

I told everyone, ‘We want the best website, we want to drive to that goal. The goal is to win the best website of the year award. That is the stated goal, we may not win it, but that is the intention.’ We wanted it to look the most professional; we wanted it to have cool things that happen aesthetically; we wanted the design team to feel free to step out of bounds and try new things with us. We were not looking for an out-of-the-box solution, we wanted to push the envelope a little bit and present something cutting edge, because our residents would be receptive to that. Our residents are excellent in their careers. They're sophisticated in the work that they do, and they expect to see that same level of excellence from their local government. We wanted to meet that level of expectation; it was the stated goal from the beginning.

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

Reading also provided CivicPlus designers with a plethora of examples to pull from to create the website they envisioned. “I did a lot of work looking in Massachusetts, Maine, [and] other regions in New England and then the design team gave us particular references to look at from all over the country. We spent weeks looking at websites, what we liked about this, what didn’t like about that, we wanted the color scheme to be soothing, professional, responsible looking and incorporate elements that are reflected in the community, the red we have is a brick red because we have so much brick architecture. We have a lot of green space inside of town, we have a lot of trails. We did a lot of these subtle symbolic things intentionally. We also modeled the Reading website on other websites that we liked a lot and wanted to emulate in certain ways.”

Website navigability was also a major goal for Wellman also. “I always wanted to have a search bar, so that no matter where you go on the on the website you always have search capability, you can dig in and locate what you are looking for.”

Regarding to the Massachusetts Municipal Associations best website award Wellman stated, with well-deserved pride, “There were elements that we were purposeful and intentional about all the way along, so it was really gratifying to be awarded the municipal website of the year for our size community because we stated that as a goal and we worked toward that goal intentionally for a long time. I’m saying intentional a lot, but it really was, reminding everybody all the time that this is what we’re trying to do, and being mindful of that every time we made our decisions, ‘Is this what we want or not?’ Then executing on that vision with CivicPlus. The designers got it and I think they had fun with it. I told them these are the kind of colors we’re looking for and they come back with a curated recommendation.” External and internal collaboration was essential to the success of the project as Reading brought in different government staff and officials from all levels of government to provide feedback.

When speaking with her colleagues, Wellman explained, “This is what we’re going to do, but we want everybody on board before we do it. We can talk here, we can argue here, but it’s a public face with one message.” Wellman, now speaking to us again, emphasized, “It’s always a public face with one message. That’s what we do.”

Much More Than a Pretty Website

Although the look and feel were critical to the end goal, functional capabilities — like the ability to minimize the number of clicks residents needed to make before finding what they are looking for — were essential to a quality municipal website. Wellman also explained that the MMA had their own set of criteria for excellence. “The award is based on certain standards. It’s about look and feel and minimizing the number of clicks to get to what you are looking for.” The MMA is clear about their expectations of a website deserving of a nomination for their award, which also gave Wellman a valuable roadmap for succeeding in achieving their stated goal.

Managing Reading’s Social Media presence and resident relationships online has always been a focus for Wellman and her team as well. “We wanted to have social media access on our front page because we don’t put everything on the website or on social media. We have members of the community that aren’t on Facebook, don’t want to be on Facebook, but may benefit from certain information being shared,” said Wellman.

Another essential goal was that Reading wanted their website to be easy for people to interact with. For instance, Wellman shared that she loved that,

You can tell when you’re mousing over things, the designers created a nice animation piece that glows when you mouse over something. We wanted those six big circles to be very functional. We wanted quick access to police, fire and DPW because those are places people go when they're in a hurry and sometimes when something's urgent, we didn't want them digging around. We want them to be able to get the permits they need quickly. We want them to be able to get their rubbish and recycling information, things as simple as ‘Is today my trash day?’ Those are the common things. We did a detailed deep dive into what people look at, what times they look at it, what people are looking for on the website so we could bring those things front and center and make it easy for people to get to them. At its core, the website is about communication; that's why the first button is Stay Connected!

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

When asked what ultimately led to Reading moving forward with CivicPlus, Wellman noted,

CivicPlus offered the only platform we were interested in working with at the time...We looked at other websites, we looked at the website providers and we did not think that any other provider integrated the website piece with the functionality piece that we needed to have. We needed payments to integrate with multiple different kinds of payment systems. All our back-end systems — like Assessing or GIS — had to work seamlessly on the website. We post all our procurement on the website. It's not just a brochure for a municipality. It is a complicated, integrated system. When we brought the project to CivicPlus and we talked a lot about what our options were, how to do this or that, how far down the road, how to construct the contract for design refreshes in the future. All of that was part of the conversation we had at the very beginning of the process, before even signing the contract, we came up with a lot of different pieces about how and the website would develop longitudinally, because we're designing a system now that will probably be still running in eight years, it was a heavy lift and we wanted to be really intelligent about how we did that. Civic Plus gave us the ability to sort that out in the beginning and be able to anticipate and build for future needs. We needed that, and CivicPlus has since acquired a number of different companies in this space like SeeClickFix who we have had a great partnership with.

Jayne Wellman

Director of Operations

Lastly, from an administrative perspective Wellman explained that their model from the website, and across the board, is to have a lot of people trained on the solutions, “We have lots of responsibility at the division level,” Wellman said. “I’d train new people on the solutions, but every department has responsibility for their own pages. My team curates what appears on the homepage, but everybody’s trained. People are professional. So, it works.”

Previous Pain Points

Outdated Website: The Town’s outdated website was a source of frustration for both residents and staff. It lacked modern features, user-friendliness, accessibility, and the ability to efficiently provide essential information to residents.

Solution(s)

Website transformation: Civic Plus revamped Reading’s website, focusing on a user-centric design, modern aesthetics, and easy navigation. The new website aimed to provide residents with quick access to essential information, from trash pickup schedules to town news.
Social media integration: The new website integrated social media elements, allowing residents to access the town’s social media content without leaving the website. This feature aimed to redirect negative conversations and foster engagement on the town’s platforms.

Results After Implementation

Streamlined Communication: With CivicPlus solutions, Reading achieved seamless communication across departments. Staff could easily manage updates and information, ensuring a consistent and professional image to residents.

Reduced negative social media impact: By encouraging residents to use the SeeClickFix app for service requests and complaints, Reading was able to address negative social media sentiment. This transition resulted in a more controlled and constructive dialogue.
Enhanced civic engagement: The user-friendly website empowered residents to find information effortlessly. The integration of social media elements encouraged engagement, allowing Reading to maintain an active online presence.
State-wide recognition and accolades: Winning the MMA Website of the Year award for a municipality of their size was no small feat and honors all the hard work put in by Wellman and her team to build something their community can be proud of and happily interact with.

Conclusion

Through its partnership with CivicPlus, Reading successfully overcame communication challenges and transformed its online presence. The town’s proactive approach to addressing pain points led to streamlined communication, enhanced engagement, and improved service request management. The combination of a user-friendly website and SeeClickFix 311 CRM fostered a sense of accountability, collaboration, and pride among residents, allowing Reading to better serve its community’s needs.

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