Fix-It: Design and Implementation of a Public Complaint Management System

An effective complaint management system is essential to providing quality public services to the residents of a smart city. The complaints or feedback from residents can help identify a problem and hence provide an opportunity to improve the quality of a service by the service providers. We propose a public complaint management system, called Fix-It, to provide a link between a service provider and the users of that service. The system uses an Android app, online database, Google maps, and a web interface. The Android app allows a user to quickly report an incident with its location and other details. The web interface allows a service provider to receive and read the complaints, and then provide feedback to the complainant after taking any corrective actions. Fix-It is a simple, lightweight, effective and easy to maintain system for communication between the provider and users of a public service. The proposed system can be easily extended to other uses such as managing customer complaints in a business, reporting incidents on the streets, reporting the progress of a public project, etc. The testing of proposed system in a municipality department shows that the system is highly effective in reducing the time and procedures for complaint reporting, tracking the progress or status of the complaint, and providing the feedback to the complainant.