From 9-to-5 to 24/7: How St. Cloud went fully digital with Convey

For contractors and homeowners, a building permit often means a trip to city hall. When payments and paperwork are only handled in person during business hours, customers wait and staff stay buried in routine tasks.

The City of St. Cloud, Florida, manages more than 3,000 inspection requests and 2,000 permit applications every month. Most of its building department’s services were only available in person during office hours.

The department partnered with Selectron, a Convey company, to bring those services online.

A busy department tied to the counter

Staff were routinely diverted from key tasks to process payments and answer phone calls. The team was working overtime to keep up with customer service. The website didn’t help. It was inflexible and its design was outdated, so customers had few options beyond calling or coming in.

Residents expect digital service from local government

People pay bills, book appointments and manage accounts online every day. Increasingly, they expect the same from local government. Contractors and homeowners don’t want to take time off work or wait in line to pay a permit fee or schedule an inspection.

Building departments are feeling that shift while managing steady workloads with lean teams. When payments and paperwork are tied to the counter, staff spend hours on routine transactions and phone calls. Customers wait, and permits take longer to move through the process.

Moving services online is not just about convenience. It frees staff to focus on the work that moves projects forward and gives customers a reliable way to get things done on their schedule.

One website for payments, scheduling and plan review

Selectron set out to give St. Cloud’s customers more virtual options. When Deputy Director Cristina Soto saw that one web solution would provide payments, inspection scheduling, plan review and document attachments together, she and her team were ready.

• 24/7 payments: Customers can pay any time, without a trip to the office.
• Inspection scheduling: Requests can be made online around the clock.
• Permitting information hub: Plan review, document attachments and permit details live in one place.
• Responsive design: A tailored, user-friendly site that works for every customer.

One million dollars in payments in the first month

With the Relay solution fully deployed, customers moved online quickly. In its first month, the web solution handled $1 million in payments.

“That first month, the web solution handled one million dollars in payments!”

Cristina Soto, Deputy Director of Administration, City of St. Cloud

Staff focused on permits, not paperwork

With payments and self-service online, staff can focus on processing permit applications. That means faster timelines for the contractors and homeowners the department serves.

The department also stopped printing receipts, forms and blueprints. Less paper means more cost and labor savings, and less time spent on tasks that don’t move permits forward.

A fully digital office

For Soto, the change redefined what the department can offer its community.

“With Selectron, I took a 9-5 Monday-Friday office and made it a 24/7 office. We run fully digital now.”

Cristina Soto, Deputy Director of Administration and Technical Services, City of St. Cloud

Self-service that works for customers and staff

St. Cloud’s results show how quickly customers adopt digital options when they are easy to use. When a payment takes a few minutes online instead of a trip to city hall, people choose it.

Convey builds on that principle across utilities and the public sector. Its intelligent customer workflows bring payments, scheduling and communication together so customers can serve themselves at any hour and staff can focus on higher-value work. Whether the customer is paying a utility bill or a permit fee, the experience should be simple, secure and available when they need it.

For St. Cloud, going digital turned a 9-to-5 office into a 24/7 service. For customers, that means less waiting. For staff, it means more time for the work that keeps the community building.

What changed for St. Cloud

• Always open: Payments, inspection scheduling and permitting information are available 24/7.
• Fast adoption: The web solution handled $1 million in payments in its first month.
• Faster permits: Staff focus on processing applications, shortening timelines for contractors and homeowners.
• Lower costs: No more printing receipts, forms or blueprints.
• A better website: A tailored, responsive design replaced an inflexible, outdated site.

St. Cloud showed that a building department doesn’t need longer office hours to serve customers better. It needs a front door that never closes.

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Frequently asked questions about digital permitting payments and Convey

What challenge was St. Cloud facing?

St. Cloud’s building department manages more than 3,000 inspection requests and 2,000 permit applications each month, but most services, including payments, were only available in person during business hours.

What does the St. Cloud web solution from Convey include?

One website provides 24/7 payments, inspection scheduling, plan review, document attachments and permitting information, with a responsive, user-friendly design.

How did the change help staff?

Staff spend less time processing payments and answering calls, so they can focus on permit applications. The department also no longer prints receipts, forms or blueprints.

How does Selectron fit into Convey’s solutions?

Selectron is a Convey company. Read the press release here.