Case Study: City of Kobe achieves 90% call‑volume reduction and faster citizen access to COVID‑19 information with Microsoft Power Apps

City of Kobe connects citizens to key information during COVID-19 with Microsoft Power Platform

City of Kobe, Japan, faced a COVID‑19 crisis that flooded its call centers—about 40,000 calls per day—because there was no way for citizens to check Special Cash Payment application status or get timely pandemic information. To respond quickly and without lengthy procurement cycles, the City of Kobe IT team turned to Microsoft Power Apps and the wider Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, Power Virtual Agents) to build self‑service and back‑office solutions.

Using Microsoft Power Apps, Kobe deployed a Power Pages status portal, a Power Apps model‑driven back‑office app, Power Automate flows integrated with Twilio for automated phone inquiries, a Power Virtual Agents chatbot, and Power BI dashboards—plus a volunteer‑matching app. The results were dramatic: call volumes fell about 90% (from ~40,000 to ~4,000/day), the portal peaked at over 200,000 hits and averaged ~35,000 page views/day, the Power BI dashboard saw ~10,000 daily views, and Dataverse stored over 700,000 applications—all rolled out within weeks, freeing staff to focus on analysis and other priorities.

City of Kobe

Kizo Hisamoto

Mayor