Customer Experience
Transformation
May 19, 2026
Lee Wilcox, Assistant City Manager / City Manager’s Office Khaled Tawfik, Chief Information Officer, Information Technology Department Jeffrey Provenzano, Director, Environmental Services Department Nichole Ederer, Deputy Director, Customer Experience, City Manager’s Office Kriti Garg, Product and Project Manager, Information Technology Department Agenda
Customer Experience (CX) Transformation Overview
Approach to Service Improvement
Service Improvement Spotlight: Junk Pickup
CX Technology
Looking Ahead
2 City of San José | Customer Experience Transformation 3 Customer
Experience (CX)
Transformation
Overview
City Council Meeting May 2026
3 The Challenge
The City delivers 74 core services across 259 programs and 20+ departments and offices,but customers do not consistently experience them as one city working on their behalf.
Customers seeking services face unclear pathways and inconsistent experiences across departments.
Staff rely on manual coordination and fragmented collaboration across departments.
City Departments Customers
SJ311
SJ Permits
Department
websites
Web
searches
City Hall
Council
Customer Experience Today
4 San Jose Operates Lean
Compared with peer cities, San José maintains one of the leanest operating models among major municipalities, reinforcing the importance of prioritization, modernization, and service delivery efficiency.
City Population (Approx.) Total FTEs* Employees per 1,000 Residents
San José ~970,000 ~6,900–7,100 ~7.1–7.3
San Diego ~1.4M ~12,000 ~8.5
Dallas ~1.3M ~13,000 ~10.0
San Antonio ~1.4M ~12,000 ~8.5
Phoenix ~1.6M ~14,000 ~8.7
Philadelphia ~1.5M ~25,000+ ~16+
Denver ~730,000 ~12,000 ~16+
Seattle ~755,000 ~12,000 ~15+
*FTE counts reflect budgeted core city staffing and may exclude part-time, temporary, enterprise, or public safety classifications.
Key:
More than 10% bigger than San José’s value
More than 10% smaller than San José’s value 5
The Intervention: The CX Transformation
The CX Transformation improves how customers access and navigate City services, and how the City provides those services.
Culture
Equip staff to support
customers across the
full-service journey.
Organizational Change
Management
Operations
Redesign processes
and efficiencies to
improve coordination
and service delivery.
Business Process
Reengineering
Technology
Modernize and improve
tools and usability for
staff and customers.
Technology Modernization
6 The Vision
Our residents and businesses deserve services they can trust. By transforming the customer experience, we are strengthening service reliability and making the City easier to navigate.
Behind the scenes, City staff are equipped with coordinated processes, clear roles and workflows, and modern tools that improve collaboration, visibility, and service delivery across departments.
Customers City Departments
One City Front
Door
City Operations
Clear roles, handoffs
workflows, and cross-
department routing.
Customer Experience in the Future
7 What will change?
The CX Transformation will create clearer pathways for residents and businesses and improved tools and processes for staff.
For residents and businesses:
Clear entry points to access services
Fewer handoffs
Improved communications
User-friendly digital experience
For Council and City staff:
Better visibility into service status
Improved collaboration across departments
Clear accountability
Streamlined workflows
8 Overlap with Driving Organizational Performance (DOP) While this work is part of the City Manager’s Foundational Strategic Support Focus Area of Delivering an Excellent Customer Experience, it also aligns with and complements the City Manager’s Foundational Strategic Support Focus Area of Driving Organizational Performance.
Driving
Organizational
Performance (DOP)
Customer
Experience (CX)
Transformation
Data & Performance:
Enterprise dashboards, 360-
degree views, key performance
indicators, and continuous
improvement
Governance & Accountability:
Cross department collaboration,
organizational change management
Operational Effectiveness:
Streamline service
delivery business
processes, redesign staff
and customer journeys
Focus on outcome
alignment, performance
governance, and service
optimization within
departments
Focus on how services
connect and function
across departments and
offices from the customer’s
perspective
9 City of San José | Customer Experience Transformation 10 Approach to
Service
Improvement
City Council Meeting May 2026
10 Service Delivery Lifecycle
The Transformation consistently evaluates City services centered around the customer journey.
Information
Seeking
Help customers
understand service
availability and what to
expect.
Intake &
Onboarding
Capture requests
accurately and set
expectations at first
contact.
Service
Fulfillment
Execute the service work
efficiently and
transparently.
Escalation &
Exceptions
Handle nonstandard
cases through defined
pathways while preserving
customer service.
Follow-up &
Closure
Close the loop and
reinforce public trust.
11 Growing Impact: Service Improvement Approach
The approach will take each City service through an end-to-end service improvement across operations, technology, and culture.
EVALUATE
Understand and
assess current
workflows, systems,
and pain points.
REENGINEER
Co-develop future
state processes and
end-to-end service
delivery with staff.
ENACT
Implement short and long-
term recommendations
based on prioritization of
impact and effort.
SUSTAIN
Monitor service
performance and
optimize as needed.
Junk Pickup
is here
12 City of San José | Customer Experience Transformation 13 Service Improvement Spotlight:
Junk Pickup
City Council Meeting May 2026
13 Service Snapshot: Junk Pickup
The Environmental Services Department provides San José residents with the ability to request unlimited, no additional cost, curbside junk pickup service to dispose of large household items. 57% 68%*
2025 to 2026
Customer Satisfaction
Scores (Target 70%)
10k
Average Requests per
Month via SJ311
2 Contracted Haulers:
California Waste
Solutions, Green Team
*As of April 2026 14
Service Standard Scorecard: Junk Pickup
The Junk Pickup scorecard provides a consistent, evidence-based view of service maturity across customer lifecycle stages.
Information Seeking
AVG: 3.5
Intake & Onboarding
AVG: 2.75
Service Fulfillment
AVG: 2.0
Escalation & Exceptions
AVG: 3.0
Follow-up & Closure
AVG: 2.0
Customer Experience
AVG: 2.6
4 Clear, consistent service
information avalable
2 Multiple channels,
inconsistent expectations
2 Service fulfillment occurs
with limited visibility for
nonstandard scenarios
4 Escalations handled with
timely follow-up
1 Closure messaging
misaligned with outcomes
Process &
Governance
AVG: 3.0
4 Standardized, clearly
defined public process
3 Clear intake but unclear
expectation-setting
2 Some inconsistencies with
service fulfillment
4 Consistent, well-owned
escalation workflow
2 Standardized closure,
imperfect decision logic
and communications
Technology
Enablement
AVG: 2.0
4 Website and 311 support
clear service discovery
2 System functions with
limited integration
1 Systems lack customer-
facing visibility
1 Manual tools drive
escalation handling
2 Automated closure, limited
messaging flexibility
Data & Measurement
AVG: 3.0
2 Web visitation data is
available but not utilized
4 Intake data captured and
utilized for improvement
3 Fulfillment data improving,
historically limited
3 Escalation data tracked,
though underutilized
3 Survey data collected,
imperfect signals
Key – Maturity Level
1 2 3 4 Optimized
15 Improvements in Progress
The Junk Pickup team is currently working on implementing the following recommendations that focus on addressing customer challenges and provide near -term improvements.
4. Establish a
Performance
Measurement
Foundation
2. Standardize
Customer
Expectations &
Messaging
1. Align and
Operationalize
Service Outcomes
3. Provide Real-Time
Missed Collection
Feedback
16 1. Align and Operationalize Service Outcomes
Recent hauler improvements:
• One hauler has implemented
processes to categorize service
cancellation and non -collection
reasons
• Data has already provided insight
into opportunities to strengthen
customer expectation -setting
• Partnering with second hauler to
understand their ability to track
and categorize service outcomes
In February 2026, 76% of requests were completed, while the remaining 24% were not completed, primarily due to items not being set out, instruction-related issues, and customer cancellations.
Not Completed (N=2,656)
February 2026, California Waste Solutions
Not Out
60%
Instructions Not
Followed
17%
Cancelled by
Customer
7%
311 Blanks or
Combining WOs
5%
Blocked Truck
Access
5%
Not Specified
3%
Other
3%
Completed
76%
Not
Completed
24%
Total Requests (N=11,236)
February 2026, California Waste Solutions
7%
Item Not Out
*Other includes items not listed set out, above the curb over 3 feet, unacceptable items, truck safety hazards, wrong workorder type, and inaccurate info 17 2. Standardize Customer Expectations & Messaging
Standardizing customer messaging across all channels (SJ311, haulers), updating SJ311 setout instructions for top 40 items, and removing pin drop option
Current Hauler Emails Updated Hauler Email
18 3. Provide Real-Time Missed Collection Feedback
Developing a standardized leave- behind notice
• Co-creating with haulers
• Proactively educate residents on non -collection
reasons at the point of service
• Improves customer experience by
o Setting clear expectations
o Reducing confusion and dissatisfaction
o Decreasing follow -up calls to SJ311
o Enabling customers to correct issues and prepare
for successful service on future pickups
Not Completed (N=2,656)
February 2026, California Waste Solutions
Item Not Out
60%
Other
Reasons
28%
Canceled or
Duplicate WO
12%
Notice will focus on
providing real-time
feedback to these
Customers
19 4. Establish a Performance Measurement Foundation
Identifying key performance measures and building on existing efforts to consistently update and review service metrics for continuous improvement
20 Potential Future Improvement Opportunities
The project team will explore the feasibility of the following additional opportunities for improvement:
• Illegal Dumping/RAPID Team can view real-time Junk Pickup details • Staff can see new and updated requests created or adjusted by haulers • Automated reminders are sent a day before the scheduled pickup date • Customer can view expected service date, updates, and non-collection reason • Customers can modify/cancel existing requests in SJ311 • Staff can modify existing tickets and track escalations within the new system • Updated close-out communication to include non-collection reason, if applicable Note: Several of the recommendations are dependent on improving the data integration between hauler and City applications. 21 City of San José | Customer Experience Transformation 22 CX Technology
City Council Meeting May 2026
22 The Vision
Our residents and businesses deserve services they can trust. By transforming the customer experience, we are strengthening service reliability and making the City easier to navigate.
Behind the scenes, City staff are equipped with coordinated processes, clear roles and workflows, and modern tools that improve collaboration, visibility, and service delivery across departments.
Customers City Departments
One City Front
Door
City Operations
Clear roles, handoffs
workflows, and cross-
department routing.
Technology Infrastructure
Customer Experience in the Future
23 Future Technology Infrastructure
24 Web Mobile App
Customer Contact Center
Phone / Chat / Email / Walk-In
AI Chatbot
OMNI-CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT CORE INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICE DELIVERY & DEPARTMENT
OPERATIONS
Service Request
Management
Enterprise
Mapping
Services
Identity
Management
Notifications &
Alerts
Document and
Knowledge
Management
Data Lake
Security &
Compliance
Customer
Contact
Management
Integrated Data & Routing Engine
Integrations &
API
City-Developed
(e.g., Streetlight
Outage)
Vendor-Operated
(e.g., Junk Pickup)
Object Detection Autonomous
Vehicle Data
Automated Issue Reporting
Public Dashboards
& Council Access
Analytics &
Reporting
Performance Management & Transparency
Work Order Management Models
City of San José | Customer Experience Transformation 25 Looking Ahead
City Council Meeting May 2026
25 What can we learn from others?
Peer city benchmarking highlights five consistent lessons about how organizational structure, governance, and accountability shape the effectiveness citywide customer experience models.
Executive Sponsorship
Cities that place CX under an
executive office benefit from stronger
mandate, faster escalation, and
greater departmental responsiveness
Data Enablement
IT-led models can strengthen data and
digital capabilities but can dilute
end-to-end CX focus.
Department Accountability
Dedicated liaisons and customer centric
metrics are essential for Service Level
Agreement enforcement, escalations,
and follow-through.
Service Consistency
Decentralized structures increase
flexibility but often reduce consistency
and enterprise visibility.
Operational Sustainability
Long-term CX performance requires
clear escalation paths and dedicated
CX improvement roles.
26 How we’re getting there
27 Plan & Mobilize Build
Foundation
Stabilize &
Enhance Scale
Sustain &
Continuously
Improve
Nov 2025 – June 2026 Jul 2026 – Mar 2027 July 2027 – Mar 2028 April 2028 OnwardsApril – June 2027 Establish structure and
plan for change
Enable initial services
on new platform
Overview
Expand to include
additional services
Sustain
transformation
Outcomes
• Build awareness and
sponsorship
• Set up transformation
infrastructure
• SJ311 services
process evaluations
• Improved customer
communications
• Improved business
processes enacted
• Staff are proficient in
using new platform
• Plan for service scaling
• First wave of services
are stable on the new
platform
• Improved front-end
customer experience
• Additional services
leveraging the new
platform
• Additional services
available to
customers via the
new front door
• Data-driven
optimization of services
and processes
• Single digital front door
and seamless citywide
customer experience
• Growth in customer
adoption and increased
trust in City services
Test and improve the
new platform
Current Phase
Closing
Residents expect one coordinated City.
We are redesigning services around the customer journey – not departmental silos.
This is a comprehensive modernization effort.
The CX Transformation aligns culture, operations, and technology to improve reliability and accountability.
Better coordination drives better performance.
Clearer processes, shared data, and coordinated service delivery improve efficiency, transparency, and public trust.
The goal is simple: make City services easier to navigate and more reliable for residents and businesses. 28