Does local government staff perceive digital communication with citizens as improved service?

Digital communication between government and citizens is pivotal to e-government. The Danish e-government initiative Digital Post aims to digitize all communications between government and citizens. We surveyed local government staff about how Digital Post affects the service delivered to citizens. As much as 82% of the 448 respondents considered digital communication with citizens using Digital Post a good idea, yet 47% reported concrete incidents in which they perceived a decrease in service with Digital Post. This result shows the importance of distinguishing between the overall service relationship and the concrete incidents of which the service consists. We discuss interactions between the relationship level and the incident level of Digital Post on the basis of a content analysis of the respondents' incident descriptions.