Cambridge, MA, Oct. 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- While the majority of Americans view their local government more positively than the federal government, many citizens cite challenges when reporting problems to local governments and obtaining resolution. Technology now enables a variety of communications channels for citizens to utilize, but is there a tradeoff between efficiency and equity?
A new research paper from the MIT Sloan School of Management published in Information Systems Research examined the data from a Boston initiative using an omnichannel approach–that of integrating all communications platforms–for the submission and resolution of complaints in the public sector over a ten-year period. While they discovered improved response times and lowered barriers to reporting issues, this ultimately did not improve equity across neighborhoods of different incomes.
Authors are Catherine E. Tucker, the MIT Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management and professor of marketing; Shuyi Yu, a data scientist at Google; and Yifei Wang assistant professor at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. Both Yu and Wang earned their PhDs at MIT Sloan.
What are the benefits of an omnichannel approach?
In 2015, Boston was one of the first cities in the United States to take an omnichannel approach to complaint resolution when it integrated the ability of apps, computers, and phones to report issues to the city. Called Boston 311, this initiative encompasses a constituent services line and mobile app allowing residents and visitors to report non-emergency neighborhood issues directly to City Hall at any time. The strategy was intended to broaden civic access to public services and ensure that all complaints were treated equally, regardless of how they were submitted. In addition, the app was updated to include complaint types that were previously only available through other channels.
“Any omnichannel approach aims to give users a smooth and consistent experience whether you use an app, a mobile website, a computer, or a phone to contact an organization,” said Tucker.
The researchers combined more than one million non-emergency public service operation records with census data from 2011 to 2019. In analyzing the data, the researchers found that the integrated approach lowered barriers to reporting issues and led to an increase in cases reported via the app that were inherently easier to resolve. The types of cases reported on the app required roughly 42% less resolution time compared to other case types, and 66% less resolution time when handled via the app.
The integration resulted in a significant improvement in the app's ability to lead to the resolution of complaints on average, resulting in around a 9.5% reduction in resolution time. The average daily number of reports via the app increased from 31 to 245 cases per day after the integration, while the cases reported via non-app channels stayed around the same. After the integration, the number of the expanded case types that were reported via app increased from zero to 150 cases daily.
Before the policy change, cases reported through the mobile app had longer resolution times compared to the other two channels, but after the omnichannel integration, the app had a substantial reduction in average resolution time, which continued for four years. (The researchers did not analyze data from 2020 onwards because the Covid pandemic was likely to have substantially impacted public service capacity and reporting.) In addition, certain types of issues that were better suited to the app, but were previously difficult to submit, were being increasingly reported through a more appropriate and efficient channel.
What is the impact of an integrative approach on equity?
The researchers’ findings highlight an important tradeoff between equity and efficiency in an omnichannel setting. For phone call and computer-submitted cases, complaints from high-income areas continued to be resolved faster than those from low-income areas; however, the difference in resolution efficiency between high- and low-income areas changed significantly for app-submitted cases. Prior to the omnichannel integration, and despite its lower overall efficiency, the app provided more equitable services across income levels compared to the other channels. After the integration, the app became much more efficient in resolving complaints, but the increase in efficiency came with a decrease in the resolution speed of complaints from low-income areas relative to high-income areas. There was also an increase in complaints that demanded the enforcement of existing codes by the city authorities on neighbors.
“While the initiative improved response times, it did not improve equity,” said Tucker. “Instead, we found evidence that higher income and ‘up-and-coming’ neighborhoods tended to use the app to submit clustered ‘enforcement’ complaints on neighbors—such as parking and complaints about the upkeep of neighboring properties.”
Before the shift to omnichannel, it was harder to request enforcement for cars parked unsatisfactorily, houses with unkempt frontages, or trash barrels that had been placed out too early. This change resulted in higher-income neighborhoods seeing more benefits in resolution time for app-based complaints.
“This insight is important not only for the public sector, but also for firms adopting an omnichannel approach to democratize access for their customers,” said Tucker. “Such efforts may fail if the integrated channel is predominantly used by a specific customer group, and therefore privileges their access to the service over others.”
Tucker added, “Our team is grateful to Boston 311 for making their data accessible to us and opening the door for the exploration of equitable solutions.”
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