River Forest residents started using the village’s new service request platform “immediately” after it went live Sept. 6, according to village Administrator Matt Walsh, with the report of a pothole “within hours of launching.”
Walsh explained that staff members began discussing an upgrade to the village service request platform in late 2023 and began working with Davenport Group in the spring. Davenport Group of Nashville, Tennessee, designs and implements IT solutions that build technology foundations for customers nationwide, according to the company website.
The village initially purchased software, called LAMA, from Davenport in 2019 to modernize the building permit submission and review process and it was implemented in the spring of 2020, said Jessica Spencer, assistant village administrator. LAMA stands for Land Management.
“After evaluating similar products on the market to improve the current service request system, staff concluded that proceeding with LAMA would enable a quicker rollout,” she added.
Walsh agreed, explaining that staff members researched several programs used by other municipalities, but found that expanding on the currently used building permit software “made the most sense for us.”
He said it took a few months of mapping out the different requests and configuring the forms that residents would eventually use.
Walsh said that nothing specific occurred that led staff members to review the previous service request system, but they discovered that service requests were often being made through Facebook or email messages to staff and board members.
“This suggested that our old platform was not being used and that we needed an upgrade in order to serve residents more quickly,” he said.
The platform is designed to make it easier for residents to submit inquiries and get the assistance they need. The new system was constructed to streamline the process to have requests addressed in a more timely manner than the previous platform.
“The intention is to more quickly respond to resident requests,” Walsh said. “The added benefit is a central location for staff to view and respond to requests, without as much manual entry as our old system.”
Spencer explained that the new platform forwards resident requests directly to the appropriate department.
The new platform can be found in the middle of the main page of the village website.
“We have it prominently displayed on our website so that any visitor on desktop or mobile will see it first thing,” Walsh explained.
The platform lists 25 options for residents, including requesting a replacement garbage bin, scheduling a branch pickup and reporting road/sewer issues.
Spencer, who Walsh credited as being the lead on the project, explained staff members identified the more common options from the previous system list in choosing the 25.
Walsh added “to make sure we were including the most common questions,” they collected feedback from other staff members and departments.
Spencer said several service requests have already been submitted through the new link on the village website.
“We are optimistic that residents will find the forms simple and efficient to use,” she said. “We encourage residents to provide feedback as we continue to refine the processes.”
“Residents can certainly still call or email,” Walsh said. “We just hope that residents are comfortable with the number of options they have to contact us and will reach out to us directly so that we can respond.”
He said officials will continue to promote the new platform in village newsletters and will highlight it in a postcard mailing this fall.
“The village is always looking at ways to strengthen property values through better service delivery to our community and our service request portal does just that,” village President Cathy Adduci said. “Now, residents can electronically submit service requests for a wide range of needs or issues, which are routed directly to the village staff member who can address it versus trying to figure out who to send it to, reducing the time it takes to resolve them.”
More information and a link to the new platform can be found on the village’s website.