Hundreds of local government organizations including Kent County, Mich. and the City of Kitchener in Ontario, Canada use Qualtrics to help understand and improve resident experiences with government services.

Qualtrics (Nasdaq: XM), the leader and creator of the experience management (XM) category, today announced Community Pulse, a new way for state and local governments to use technology to understand and respond to the experiences of their constituents.

Local governments have survived a myriad of challenges over the past two years, and the pandemic prompted many residents to expect a digital way to connect with city, county and state leaders. Community Pulse provides an accessible, inclusive solution for gathering and acting on resident feedback, improving trust and transparency and helping government officials build more equitable, inclusive and welcoming communities.

Community engagement is critical to governments’ ability to empathetically develop policies, plans and programs that make the best use of taxpayer money. But reaching a representative sample of residents is challenging. And understanding and analyzing community needs, sentiments and expectations strains agencies’ already limited resources.

The Community Pulse solution makes it easy for governments to understand how their residents are feeling when it comes to trust and satisfaction in their government; diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB); and quality of life – and understand the drivers behind them.

“Residents have opinions about the government programs that affect them,” said Sydney Heimbrock, chief industry advisor for government at Qualtrics. “Gathering a wide range of community input and directing resources to the activities that meet real needs helps build a healthy feedback and action loop.”

Building public trust by listening to residents and taking action on their feedback

Community Pulse is a 27-item question set built by government industry experts and XM scientists. It includes a pre-configured dashboard to display metrics that matter to government agencies. With six pre-designed views - Executive Summary; Community Needs Analysis; Satisfaction with Public Services; Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging; Text Topic Analysis; and Respondent Demographics - the Community Pulse dashboard delivers insights in real-time, making gathering and acting on feedback easier than ever.

For government agencies undertaking strategic planning, the solution helps them model how the resident experience might vary depending on location, age, ethnicity and other key demographics. With the ability to capture responses to open-ended questions and apply smart analytics, leaders can see trends and take action on what matters most to residents.

By enabling governments to effectively engage the community and build resident-centric policy, plans and programs, leaders are better able to drive meaningful, positive, long-lasting impact:

• Improve resident trust of government
• Enhance government transparency
• Increase adoption of equity and inclusion best practices
• Build relationships with community leaders and the community overall
• Ensure an inclusive and welcoming community

“Strong community engagement programs combine a culture of listening to residents, best program practices and accessible technology to meet people where they are,” Heimbrock said. “The Community Pulse solution was built for the government with industry-validated methodology and best practices. Building trust in government starts here with elevating citizen voices.”

Local governments leading the way

Kent County, Mich. and the City of Kitchener in Ontario, Canada are among the more than 350 state, provincial and local government organizations and 90 federal offices partnering with Qualtrics to improve the community experience.

The pandemic pushed Kent County, Mich. to expand community engagement efforts faster than it would have otherwise. County government officials were making real-time decisions affecting residents, and at the same, the community was seeking information and access to public health services. Qualtrics became a key source of information for the county’s COVID response efforts. County leaders are now incorporating valuable lessons learned with Qualtrics to improve their approach to community engagement.

“One of the important lessons we learned through the pandemic was that the way we communicate with one constituency is not always successful for everyone,” said Lori Latham, communications director at Kent County. “It’s taken time and intention, but we’re reaching more people, our response rates are increasing and our relationship with the community is improving. The key to building trust was what happened after pulsing - taking action based on resident recommendations and communicating back to the community so they feel heard.”

The City of Kitchener in Ontario, Canada uses Qualtrics to collect data and improve resident services on an ongoing basis.

“Engaging with the public is an important part of our service-first culture at the City,” said Christine Baker, manager of customer experience at the City of Kitchener. “Our feedback collection program allows us to hear directly from our customers after they’ve interacted with us to learn more about how we’re doing and to better understand how they feel about our programs and services. The feedback we’re collecting helps us to prioritize our work so we can make targeted improvements to enhance the customer experience.”

To learn more about Community Pulse, see here: https://www.qualtrics.com/marketplace/community-pulse/

About Qualtrics XM for Government

Qualtrics XM for Government helps design experiences that build public trust and foster community engagement by putting people at the center of every government experience. XM for Government helps create more inclusive and effective services, programs and policies. Qualtrics delivers the most comprehensive platform for strategic experience management, helping government organizations capture feedback across every touchpoint and journey, streamline workflows and automate actions to continuously improve the experience of communities and employees. Qualtrics is the only ISO 27001, FedRAMP compliant and HITRUST certified experience management platform on the market, so organizations can confidently collect and analyze data knowing sensitive information is secure. The solutions are used by more than 350 state, provincial and local government organizations and 90 federal offices to harness the power of resident and employee sentiment to design policies and provide services the public needs most. To learn more, please visit qualtrics.com/government.

About Qualtrics

Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, is changing the way organizations manage and improve the four core experiences of business—customer, employee, product and brand. Over 16,750 organizations around the world use Qualtrics to listen, understand and take action on experience data (X-data™)—the beliefs, emotions and intentions that tell you why things are happening, and what to do about it. The Qualtrics XM Platform™ is a system of action that helps businesses attract customers who stay longer and buy more, engage employees who build a positive culture, develop breakthrough products people love and build a brand people are passionate about. To learn more, please visit qualtrics.com.

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Strong community engagement programs combine a culture of listening to residents, best program practices and accessible technology to meet people where they are