This memo was drafted in September 2019 for informational purposes for the City of Philadelphia Department of Commerce. It does not in any way represent the Department of Commerce’s opinion or policy on this matter.
What is the current state of the business customer experience in Philadelphia?
Opening a new business in Philadelphia, like in all major cities, involves a series of permits, inspections, and associated paperwork and processes to obtain them. Through the Food Business Process Improvement Pilot which included both internal (city staff) and external (business owner) design thinking workshops, the City was able to map the process, identify pain points, and recommend process improvements. Commerce learned that the process is complex, difficult to navigate, and overall challenging, especially for small business owners. Drivers of some issues with Cx include:
- No central office with all of customer’s data available to them
- Data sharing among departments is ad hoc and inconsistent – anecdotally we’ve heard it can often take two weeks to complete some data requests
- Performance metrics for these departments are not aligned to the goals of the customer experience
- Process improvement is not baked into the current process due to departmental silos
- No one owns the overall business Cx, and this lack of ownership means lack of accountability as well
How has New York’s model for a BAT worked?
The New Business Acceleration Team (NBAT) was developed by New York City under Mayor Bloomberg’s administration to make it easier for small businesses to work with the city. Given the number, varying size, and number of permits and licenses required, restaurants were an obvious fit. Initially the model was meant to crack down on the number of violations that occurred, but quickly pivoted to helping better serve these establishments.
NBAT consisted of representatives from all major departments interacting with these businesses including Health Department, Department of Buildings, Fire Department, and Environmental Protection. One of the key tasks this group completed was a process map, laying out all of the steps, stakeholders, and pain points for a restaurant to open in New York. Members of the team reported both to NBAT and to their own department, and mostly relied on existing administrative systems to communicate and share information on individual businesses. A small-scale Salesforce instance was later deployed, though an enterprise-level solution was not successfully adopted.
NBAT assigns a client manager to each business, with managers having approximately 75 clients each at varying stages of their projects. Their main responsibility was to make sure inspections happened just-in-time to avoid costly delays in opening and inefficient use of city resources. Cross-trained inspectors were used to help consistently and completely identify issues at client sites prior to inspections, solving a major issue for businesses who didn’t know what was expected of them.
Are there additional models to consider when developing Philly’s BAT?
In addition to the New York model, we reviewed other cities and how they’ve been able to improve Cx for businesses specifically.
Chicago, Small Business Center
City of Chicago launched an in-person, one-stop-shop for business needs related to permits, licenses, and inspections. Department representatives from each of the main stakeholder groups sat together in this new center. All necessary forms and paperwork were in one place, with consultants able to help guide business owners through the process. This helped cut down on avoidable paperwork errors, and advise businesses on inspection expectations to help them pass on the first try.
Chicago, Business District
An online system, which is connected to the user’s business account with the city, Chicago Business District allows businesses and their legal teams in Chicago to complete most of their transactions with the city remotely. The system operates through manual review and approval of the information for zoning or licenses, and integrates with the city’s larger business and tax database (IRIS) to facilitate updates and processing of tax information.
Los Angeles, LADBS Go App
The City of Los Angeles offers online tools in addition to a mobile application called LADBS Go. This is an Android and Apple application allowing business owners of any size or type to use their same city log-in to schedule inspections, check status of permits, view wait times for various service counters, and report violations they see elsewhere in the city.
Austin, Smart Start
In collaboration with a locally-based technology firm, the city of Austin, Texas now offers Smart Start on their website. Essentially, Smart Start services as a comment thread on their checklist pages of how to get started doing business in the city. Joint review and answering of questions is managed by the city’s Development Services (most similar to L&I in Philly) and Economic Development departments.
Which model would be ideal? And which would be most feasible in Philadelphia?
In lieu of recommending a particular model, there are a few aspects of each approach that should be kept at the center of any discussion of improved business customer experience in Philadelphia. Each of the cities we studied solved a few key problems for both businesses and themselves.
- Map the current process. This is an invaluable first step to explore, understand, and document the environment as it exists currently.
- Establish a performance baseline. Performance metrics must be developed and agreed upon, along with a plan to accurately measure and regularly report on each one. For example, should the city prioritize time to completion of permits? Or ratio of approvals or inspections passed?
- Build a process for continuous improvement. While information sharing and concierge-type services are helpful, ultimate success lies in empowering front-line staff to contribute process improvements as they arise.
- Assign ownership of these metrics to a team or executive. Without support and management toward improvement of these metrics, no model will be successful.
What made the New York model so impressive was their understanding of the problem: business owners were losing money, and thus the city was losing tax revenue. This created the urgency needed to get all stakeholders on the bus and moving towards their shared goal, a faster approval process for restaurants in the city. Whether or not case managers are involved, they keyed in a few areas to save time and resources, such as consulting business owners on expectations for their inspections and ensuring those inspections happened just-in-time.
It would be valuable to learn more about the problems Los Angeles and Chicago had set out to solve initially before we can determine the relative value of their models. Chicago chose a more human capital intensive program, with physical presence playing a key role. LA services much of their business transactions through web and mobile applications, which have higher start-up costs, but can be lower cost options in that they scale most efficiently. In an ideal scenario, a balanced approach would be deployed to best serve the most with the least resources required.
Joe Buckshon 