New Report Reveals State and Local Governments Can Shift 80% of Resident Transactions to Online Channels

New study from PayIt outlines insights from 1800 U.S. and Canadian customers to help government agencies achieve efficiency gains

Kansas City, Missouri, September 17, 2024 — Shifting residents to digital channels improves efficiency for state and local government agencies, but clunky software and limited resident adoption stand in the way. New research from PayIt, the leader in digital customer experience solutions for state and local governments, offers insight into how agencies can achieve 80%+ adoption of digital channels. The research, based on a survey of nearly 1800 US and Canadian consumers, is explored in the new edition of PayIt’s Digital Government Adoption Index.

“We wanted to explore how consumers’ experiences influence their adoption of digital channels in their interactions with government agencies,” said Kelly Davis-Felner, Chief Marketing Officer at PayIt. “The study makes it clear that government agencies can achieve widespread use of online services, but only when they offer an intuitive customer experience. That leads to big gains in operational efficiency and resident satisfaction.”

The report revealed key insights, including:

• Achieving 80%+ digital adoption is possible. Only 13% of consumers reported they plan to stay analog, saying they probably or definitely will not pay their next government bill online. The vast majority of residents expect — or can be persuaded — to go digital.
• Customers bring high expectations to government interactions. Users today expect features they would find in any commercial digital experience. They are also motivated to provide more personal information when they get more value in return: For example, 89% of respondents would be motivated to create an account rather than pay as a guest if they can get reminders of upcoming payments.
• Security and privacy concerns cause hesitation. Most of the respondents view the relative security of digital transactions as less secure than in-person, over the phone, or via mail — with 28% of the least likely to transact online respondents citing security as the primary reason they don’t plan to use this channel.
• Every generation prefers digital, but their experiences vary. Even among the oldest cohort, the majority of respondents have made a government payment online in the last 18 months. However, the perceived experiences of the different generations were perhaps surprising: 75% of the youngest cohort (18-29 years) experienced at least one challenge when paying for government services.
• Consumers are still unsure about artificial intelligence (AI). As government leaders explore the potential of AI to improve service delivery, they should proceed with caution. Only 56% percent of respondents are somewhat or very comfortable with government agencies using AI, while the other 44% of respondents said they are somewhat or very uncomfortable with this new technology.

Explore these insights further and learn how to drive digital adoption in the 2024 PayIt Consumer Digital Government Adoption Index.

Our survey was conducted in July 2024, via SurveyMonkey, using their Audiences sample pool. For this survey, the nationally representative samples comprised 1285 US and 510 Canadian internet users who had paid a government bill in the last 18 months. The margin of error for the survey is +/-4%.

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About PayIt

PayIt enables state and local government agencies to deliver a great resident payments experience that accelerates the shift to digital. Agencies choose PayIt to better achieve their mission through improved operational efficiency, customer support, and resident satisfaction. Our solutions span property tax, courts, utilities, DMV, outdoors, and more. PayIt provides a single resident profile across agencies and jurisdictions, integrates into back-office and adjacent systems, and our team helps clients drive adoption of digital channels. Serving more than 100 million residents in North America, we have received awards from Fast Company and StateScoop, and have been listed in the GovTech 100 for 8 years and counting.

PayIt: Smarter for government. Easier for everyone.

Media Contact

Cara Schwartzkopf

Marketing Communications Manager

PayIt

[email protected]