St. Louis streamlines resident experience with digital services

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Gregory F.X. Daly, Collector of Revenue for the City of St. Louis, was facing a major challenge. The city’s payment system did not have any integration capabilities so the Collector of Revenue’s office had to manually enter each payment – an incredibly time-consuming process.

In addition, this payment system was only available on desktop, with no mobile-responsive or native app channel available. Daly was also looking to consolidate property tax payments and water/refuse payments into one experience for his residents. This presented another challenge: the solution had to be scalable across several other government services, without a large customization effort.

Traditionally, this vision would take multiple, custom-coded solutions that cost tens of millions of dollars, which Daly’s budget wouldn’t cover.

In November 2016, Daly’s office partnered with govtech company PayIt on a digital reimagining of the citizen experience. Through this partnership, the Collector of Revenue’s office was able to launch PayIt St.Louis at no cost to the city, with the flexibility for rapid deployment of new services and features.

Scalable services

With PayIt St.Louis, the St. Louis Collector of Revenue’s office is able to provide a citizen-centric, streamlined digital experience. The service allows residents to easily pay property taxes, earnings taxes, utility bills and court violations/tickets. All of this can be done by the citizen’s preferred device — with web, mobile-web and native Apple and Android apps available.

What sets PayIt St. Louis apart from other digital government offerings is that it’s not just a payment platform; it provides a full, end-to-end experience for every user. Citizens are able to create a single, secure wallet that combines and stores all of their payment, property and transaction information in one place. Residents of St. Louis can also set up alerts, set up recurring payments and keep track of upcoming due dates.

Since PayIt St. Louis was launched, the city has incorporated new services and features, such as municipal court payments and online earnings tax payments, to continue executing its vision of a unified citizen experience.

The PayIt service was also expanded to include an interactive voice response (IVR) phone payment system for water bills. In the first seven months, there were over 5,550 phone payments and US$2.3 million in revenue collected.

Results

By providing a citizen-centered experience, St. Louis has increased online revenue and improved operational efficiency. With more services and features on the horizon, the city has established itself as a leader in the govtech space.

Daly said: “As technology continually shapes the way citizens interact with local government, we needed an innovative partner who could meet that challenge. Through web and mobile applications, IVR payments and expanded services, PayIt St.Louis has kept us in the forefront of an ever-changing landscape, keeping our customers’ payments and information safe while providing a quick and easy way to pay.”

PayIt serves more than 80 million people in North America and works with leaders in local government agencies on their modernization programs.

Download PayIt’s practical guide to deploying digital services effectively.