I was thinking recently about one of the strangest contradictions in local government.

Cities collect money from residents and businesses all day long. Water bills, permit fees, business licenses, parking tickets, code violations, recreation fees, inspection fees and probably another dozen things I’m forgetting.

You would think that with all that money changing hands, cities would have become unbelievably good at accepting it.

Yet somehow paying a city can still feel like you’re trying to complete a financial transaction in 1987.

Depending on where you live and what you’re paying, you might need to mail a check, obtain a certified check, find a particular office inside City Hall or physically show up during business hours. Maybe you have to park in a garage, walk several blocks or, my personal favorite, actually pay for parking so you can go inside a government building and pay the government more money.

Then you get to the counter and sometimes encounter someone who acts as though your arrival has ruined an otherwise perfectly good afternoon.

Why?

You’re there to give them money.

If there were ever a moment in the relationship between a city and its residents that should be incredibly easy, this would seem to be it.

Businesses Learned This a Long Time Ago

Think about how much effort private companies put into removing friction from the moment of payment.

Amazon remembers your credit card. Restaurants bring handheld terminals to the table. Apple lets you buy something by double-clicking a button on your phone. Uber made paying for a ride almost invisible. You get out of the car and walk away.

There’s a reason companies obsess over this stuff. Every unnecessary step is another opportunity for someone to become frustrated, abandon the transaction or think differently about the business.

Government doesn’t have quite the same problem. You can’t exactly abandon your water bill because the checkout experience was annoying and switch to another water provider.

And maybe that’s precisely why the experience hasn’t received enough attention.

A business has to make things easy because you can leave. A city knows you can’t.

That’s not a particularly good reason to provide a worse experience. If anything, I think it creates an even greater responsibility to provide a good one.

Paying Is Part of the City’s Brand

When cities talk about branding, the conversation usually involves logos, colors, slogans, websites, welcome signs and tourism campaigns.

I think that’s an incredibly narrow definition of a brand.

Ask someone how they feel about their city and I doubt their answer has much to do with the logo.

Their opinion was built through hundreds of little experiences.

They called about a pothole and somebody actually answered. They pulled a permit and it took three weeks longer than promised. They signed their child up for summer camp. They attended an event in the park. They disputed a parking ticket. They called the water department. They tried to open a business. They walked into City Hall and asked a question.

Those interactions are the brand.

And paying the city is one of those interactions.

Imagine spending $100,000 on a new municipal identity promising that your community is innovative, welcoming and business-friendly, then telling a business owner they need to bring a certified check to a particular office between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Which message do you think they’re going to remember?

The City Can’t Always Make the Bill Pleasant. It Can Make Paying It Pleasant.

There is an important distinction here.

Nobody enjoys getting a parking ticket.

Nobody gets excited about paying a permit fee.

A water bill isn’t going to become the highlight of someone’s day because the payment portal has attractive typography.

The city doesn’t control the emotional baggage that comes with every transaction.

It absolutely controls what happens next.

If someone owes $150, let them pay the $150 in 30 seconds from their phone.

Let them use Apple Pay or Google Pay. Let them securely save a payment method. Let them scan a QR code on the notice. Let them receive an immediate confirmation that clearly says what they paid and what happens next.

Don’t make them create an account with a password containing three capital letters, two Egyptian hieroglyphics and the name of their first-grade teacher just to give you money.

And if someone genuinely needs to visit City Hall, that experience shouldn’t feel like punishment either.

Parking should be obvious. Directions should be clear. The person behind the counter should understand that they aren’t simply processing a transaction. For a few minutes, they are the entire city government to the person standing in front of them.

That matters.

Even the Receipt Is an Opportunity

This is where my marketing brain starts wondering why cities waste so many little opportunities.

Imagine someone just paid their annual business license fee.

The typical confirmation might say something like:

PAYMENT RECEIVED
TRANSACTION #3847291
AMOUNT: $247.00

Perfectly functional.

But why couldn’t it also say:

“Thank you for doing business in our community.”

Or after someone pays a recreation fee:

“We’ll see you at the park!”

Maybe a longtime resident paying a water bill gets a simple thank you for being part of the community.

Nothing cheesy. Nothing that feels like propaganda. Just a little humanity.

Companies spend fortunes trying to create these tiny moments because they understand that experiences accumulate.

Cities already have the moments. They just don’t do much with them.

There Is Also a Compliance Argument

Making payment easier isn’t simply about being nice.

It should help the city accomplish what it wanted in the first place: getting paid.

If a bill can be paid immediately from a phone, some people will pay it immediately.

If paying requires finding the checkbook, buying a stamp and remembering to put an envelope in the mail tomorrow, you have introduced several opportunities for procrastination.

The same is true of a complicated online portal. Every login, form field and confusing instruction creates friction.

I’ve always found it strange when organizations complain about late payments while maintaining payment systems that seem almost designed to produce them.

Before sending another reminder notice, maybe try making the original bill ridiculously easy to pay.

Business Owners Notice This Stuff

This matters even more when cities say they want to attract entrepreneurs and investment.

Imagine somebody opening their first business in town.

They’ll probably interact with the city multiple times before opening the doors. Zoning questions, permits, inspections, licenses, utilities and fees.

Those aren’t administrative details from the business owner’s perspective. They’re the first experiences that person has doing business with the community.

A city can put “BUSINESS FRIENDLY” across its economic development website in 72-point type.

If opening a business requires four trips to City Hall and three certified checks, the entrepreneur is going to form a different opinion.

You don’t tell someone you’re easy to do business with.

You make doing business with you easy.

I Would Treat Every Payment Like a Customer Experience

If I were evaluating a city’s resident experience, I’d start by making a list of every situation in which someone has to give the city money.

Then I’d actually try each one.

Not from a government computer. From a phone.

How many clicks does it take?

Can I understand what I owe?

Can I pay without creating an unnecessary account?

Are modern payment methods accepted?

Are the fees clearly disclosed?

Do I immediately know the payment went through?

Can I easily find the receipt six months later?

What happens if something goes wrong?

And for transactions that genuinely require an in-person visit, I’d walk through that experience too. I’d park where a resident parks, enter through the same door, wait in the same line and speak to the same counter.

Cities conduct studies on far more complicated things.

This one could probably be accomplished in an afternoon.

Make the Easy Things Easy

Not every problem in local government has a simple solution.

Infrastructure is complicated. Housing is complicated. Public safety is complicated. Economic development is complicated.

Accepting money isn’t.

That’s what makes unnecessary friction around payments so frustrating. This is one of the relatively easy things to improve, and improving it touches an enormous number of residents and businesses.

Maybe the goal should be ridiculously simple: if someone is ready to pay the city, make that moment effortless.

And while you’re at it, make it pleasant.

Because every interaction teaches residents something about the place they live.

Even the receipt.

GRIP.D helps public-sector organizations improve how they communicate with and serve their communities. From branding and website development to digital campaigns and resident-focused communications, we help make public services easier to understand, access and navigate.

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