How to Manage a 311 Call Center

A 311 call center representative handles your city service requests.

A 311 call center is a local government, non-emergency telecommunications hub that routes service requests between citizens, city departments and divisions. For example, the call center handles phone requests for trash removal, street repair, non-emergency police calls and code inspections. A typical 311 call center may have on staff representatives who answer the phone, a manager and a director. Managing a 311 call center involves tracking issues, improving service for local citizens and creating a system that is more efficient and productive. Doing this requires installing a call center software package to customize the needs of the organization.

Things You'll Need

• Call center software package (CRM)

Instructions

System Planning and Designing

1. Meet with city division managers and supervisors to discuss the business requirements for each department and office. Review the present service request routing system.

2. Debate and suggest different methods for achieving departmental goals relative to fulfilling a citizen's or division's service request. Address present issues with performing city services.

3. Storyboard how you want phone representatives to answer and route system calls to the appropriate city department using software. Write and develop a phone script to ensure that employees collect as much information about the problem as is necessary to address city problems efficiently.

4. Establish procedures for receiving e-mail and Web requests. Develop a self-service Web portal for citizens and city division managers to view the status of their requests.

Installing and Deploying the Software

1. Connect the software to the main server's e-mail and network infrastructure. Import historical and statistical data about the city and past service requests.

2. Organize the software so 311 phone representatives can route service requests to city departments by choosing from a drop-down menu. Place city departments into categories based upon geographic area and type of service.

3. Configure the software so that the phone script displays each time a representative receives a new call.

Case Management and Performance Tracking

1. Track the number of closed service requests. Use the software to view the number of open requests assigned to a 311 phone representative. Timeline when the representative closes and routes the request to the appropriate department.

2. Record the number of cases opened and scheduled for a city department by a 311 representative. Supervise and monitor the investigation of the cases. Troubleshoot and resolve problems related to delivering service to citizens.

3. Manage the performance of representatives to determine if call center service is improving for citizens and city divisions. Meet with city department managers to discuss performance gaps related to decreases in call response times and completing service requests.

4. Suggest and create a performance metric to measure improvement and compliance with state regulatory communications agencies. Monitor the performance of 311 call center employees.

References

• Microsoft: City of Birmingham Case Study

Resources

• Microsoft: Microsoft Dynamics CRM