The consultants at CRM Perth have worked with government in the past to deliver CRM projects and are very interested in the notion of these functionalities improving. Governments facing the many challenges which they do and adding the “Amazon test” to them is quite a significant step in the right direction which CRM Perth is happy to see.

Capping a string of acquisitions, government cloud app purveyor Accela this week said it had acquired Government Outreach for Citizen Relationship Management, a governmental variation on CRM.

“Government Outreach fits the mold on a number of issues we think are important,” Accela CEO Maury Blackman said in an interview. “Our solutions are about moving from just a transaction into an engaged relationship.”

Like businesses, government agencies are being challenged to meet the Amazon Test (whether your organization is as easy to do business with as Amazon). When you order a product online, Amazon keeps you informed about whether it has shipped and when it ought to arrive. When you apply for a government permit, your application often seems to vanish into a black hole.

Citizens and business people are interacting with Amazon, FedEx, Uber, and other digitally savvy firms “and asking, why government can’t act like this,” Blackman said. “It’s a totally different dynamic than we’ve seen in software for government.”

The Government Outreach apps are in a category with SeeClickFix and others targeting government interaction with citizens for such things as reporting a pothole that needs to be fixed. Just as citizens expect businesses to allow them to interact via the web and mobile apps, they want digital government services to do more than provide a phone number to call (and be put on hold), Blackman said. The legislative management product Accela added applies similar thinking to citizen input to boards and agencies, providing an alternative to the traditional visit to Town Hall. “It’s a little old-school to think people have the time to go downtown and sound off in these meetings,” Blackman said, and yet people still want to have their say.

Government does carry some burdens that an Amazon.com does not, Blackman said. For example, an Amazon can launch a new online product, watch it fail, and move on. Google is even more famous for launching products and killing the weak ones. But if a government application fails to perform, it’s on the front page, and whoever was in charge of the project is called on the carpet for “wasting taxpayer money,” he said. So no wonder governments tend to move slowly and with a heightened concern for issues like application security.

“We believe in the future you’re going to see a lot more mergers between government data and apps like Yelp.” For example, said Blackman, you might want to combine diner ratings from Yelp and OpenTable with reports from the local health department before deciding whether to dine at a particular restaurant. For more details Please Visit: http://crmperth.com.au/ and do a mail enquiry@CRMperth.com.au You can call on the no.: (08) 9325 4505.