When Christine Williams joined Park City Municipal in 2024, the backflow program was already tracking over 3,200 assemblies.

Early on, she kept running into the same issue: people weren’t sure what the city was asking them to do.

“We were hearing from consumers and from testers that they were confused about what we were looking for,” she said.

At the time, the message was often simple: it’s time to test your backflow. But many customers didn’t know what a backflow assembly was, let alone whether they had one.

“People would be like, ‘Backflow? What is that?'” Christine said.

Christine saw the confusion as a clarity gap, not a lack of effort. She knew the program didn’t need louder reminders.

Before working in water compliance, Christine spent years in financial services, supporting compliance and regulatory requirements.

“In compliance, it’s about understanding the requirement and then making sure people know how to meet it,” she said. “That translates no matter the industry.”

Communicating more than the deadline

Christine started by looking at where people were getting stuck.

As questions came in, a pattern emerged. Many of the city’s customers didn’t know which situation applied to them. Some customers had tested their backflow protection but never reported it. Others had assemblies that were never tested or didn’t know if protection was needed.

“We realized we needed to explain the possibilities,” Christine said. “Not just say, ‘It’s time to test.'”

They stopped sending the same reminder to everyone. Instead, they began to customize messages based on their customers’ awareness of the rules. Each message helped recipients understand  their situation, then guided them to the next step.

Christine used SwiftComply to set up various communication paths based on what they knew about a location. They also continually refined the language as they received feedback.

“We went through a lot of iterations,” she said. “Every time someone asked, ‘Why does it say this?’ we’d look at it and adjust.”

Creating campaigns to identify untracked locations

Christine also wanted to rethink how those messages reached customers.

The team built outreach campaigns to identify locations that should have protection but weren’t yet in the system. Fire suppression systems were one of the strongest signals. By linking data from other city systems, they could identify spots needing backflow protection. This way, they could start outreach without depending on site visits.

From there, those locations followed a defined communication track that showed customers what applied to them before sending any standard reminders.

Once an assembly was established, the city followed its usual schedule: a 60-day reminder, a 30-day reminder, and, if needed, a notice of violation. Accounts in the final stages needed more follow-up. By that point the team had set clear expectations and the documentation was in place.

“The communication process does it all for us,” Christine said. “Once it’s set up, people get the information they need and go through the steps.”

Bringing testers into the process

Park City hosted a luncheon for testers and administrators across the area. It was a chance to sit down, walk through expectations, and put faces to names.

“A lot of them only know me as the person sending emails,” Christine said. “I wanted them to know I’m a real person.”

The luncheon gave Christine space to explain how the program worked and what customers were seeing in their inboxes. Testers could ask questions and see how their reporting fit into the larger process. When testers knew what messages customers were receiving, the back-and-forth became easier. Fewer cases stalled.

“I tell testers all the time, ‘This is my work cell phone number,'” she said. “Shoot me a text when you’re out in the field.”

The same goes for customers. When they run into problems, they know who to call for a quick conversation.

The results of getting communication right

Today, Park City’s backflow program maintains a 94% compliance rate.

“The biggest thing is that people understand what we’re asking them to do,” Christine said. “When they understand it, compliance follows.”

The approach has also made the program easier to refine. Christine doesn’t treat communication as finished. She adjusts the language when questions come up and tests new ideas, like shifting reminder notices from letters to postcards, with the same focus on clarity.

For Park City, building a stronger backflow program didn’t start with tightening enforcement. It began with clearer messages and a system to support those conversations at scale.