Can citizens get satisfaction?

When we talk about open government technology, it’s often in terms of open data, open source software, social media or crowd-sourced ideation and 311 tools. What’s rarely discussed is a truly open, transparent and comprehensive platform where citizens can comment or ask government questions and get direct assistance from public servants or even their own fellow citizens.

New Web 2.0 customer service tools such as Get Satisfaction offer government an opportunity to connect with citizens online and real time in the most transparent way possible. While adoption is slow, Texas.gov and the NYC Comptroller’s Office are formally leveraging these options to address citizen service issues, share ideas, report problems and even accept praise.

Compared to the private sector, government has been slow to adopt this cloud-based, out-of-the-box option, but as the push for open and need for fiscal creativity become inevitable, ‘citizen relationship management’ is the new CRM.

We asked Get Satisfaction CEO Wendy Lea to share her advice on how government can leverage Web 2.0 tools to better connect with citizens...